I long once again to smell sweerbread
baking in the oven and hear chestnuts
rumbling, boiling on the stove top, and see
my mother's hands in gloves of white flour,
pulling on the apron of night's black face
and say it's dawn, but we knew it was far
from this place, my father had the sun
locked in his fists, he said the radio was
too loud, but it was my brother's voice he
heard from the top of the stairs.

I sit now near the window and watch the
yellow leaves fall and imagine my mother's
voice in the other room as she tries to
mend the weeds between my father's shoes,
and I, I long to leap into another place
far out above the heavy skies of rain where
nothing falls except the wind blown breath
of shadows leaping across the yard as I sit
watching the wet leaves break between the
dark winter trees and me.