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.