I look up from an ink impression on a papercut and watch as clouds conduct me down to mounds of wasted leaves singing as they’re kicked around the feet of bony trees some great beast builds inside my chest its fingers tap cachetic cadence my lungs expand at walking pace with sour disgrace and hollow breath my cough like old piano keys come loose like teeth played by disease; between the beats an echo of a seizing fate advancing to its deviant crescendo I endure for darker nights come soon bearing banded light of moon poured above the rolling fog that knocks on every door in tune welcome evening welcome gloom hear them come and laugh because it’s goodbye daylight goodbye bloom that domain of green in verdant staves and columns a summer melody as though it never was hello orange hello red Hallowe’en; the dead and solemn - surface that which fears no laws: life beyond that cloak of cold notes of men no cell can hold decomposed enchambered souls reach across from whence you’ve fallen - Autumn feeds on things gone rotten