SKETCH IN OCTOBER
The tugboat is freckled with rust. What’s it doing here so far inland?
It’s a heavy, burnt-out lamp in the cold.
But the trees have wild colors. Signals to the other shore!
As if someone needed to be picked up.
On the way home, I see ink-mushrooms pushing up through the lawn.
They’re the help-seeking fingers of someone
who has sobbed for a long time in the darkness down there.
We are the earth’s.