Equinox
BY SIOBHAN PHILLIPS
For milk and the morning paper, I walk
down this crooked arm of road
around the woods. Sky twists
like wet smoke in the branches’ gaps.
Last year’s leaves steep in snow;
tree-trunks shiver and chap. These stretching,
seasonless curves, the tease of softening
air might take us in, our skin
forget to bristle; sandy, squinting
eyes can blur the shades like reams
of filled-in time-sheets, late-night talks
that stain and seep into dreams: browns
and whites and duns, then darker browns.
Color is in the News, where blue
and green define the patchy heat
of a human brain-map: memory loss
begins with sex, the scientists say.
I read the full story at home,
my thumbprints smudging grey. The steam’s
plume climbs. I pour the tea.
It’s time to wake you, start the day.