A misty moon at night, cold and silvery, through golden-lit branches
Image courtesy of the author

Today: Sam Thielman, a reporter, critic, essayist, and editor, and graphic novel columnist for the New York Times.

Issue No. 201

Late Fall
Sam Thielman

Late Fall

by Sam Thielman

Before Halloween, the sky is filled with bodies
After a long rain and a brutal flood.
Sometimes there are even cars in the trees.
People look up, trying not to recognize anyone
Dead behind the wheel after the rainfall,
Hoping to see only autumn leaves.

Elsewhere, a man is clearing away leaves,
Children pretend to have mutilated bodies,
And it's so hot. Maybe there will be rainfall
After the trick-or-treaters. They flood
Down the avenue, asking anyone
for treats, new buds on uncertain trees.

After the deluge, the trees
Still clench root-fists below turf and leaves.
The leaves decay and reek. When anyone
claims to help, it's just food and clothes. Not bodies
with chainsaws to shift the flotsam of the flood-
tide. Bring us water, and no more rainfall.

The man in Brooklyn clears leaves before rainfall.
They die wrong now. Greenery clings to trees
Even though it's October. They should flood
down in red and orange and yellow. He leaves
his work for a moment, letting little bodies
run onto leafy sidewalk. They do not stop for anyone.

In the mountains, there's room for anyone.
The silence, the darkness, the leaves, the rainfall
Descend the same on all the bodies
Warm or cold. The living can bargain with trees,
and anybody who can't strike a deal leaves
or is made into Halloween decoration by the flood.

In Brooklyn, no ghost or pirate fears a flood
yet. Death is here, but he doesn't impress anyone.
He picks us out like fruit at the grocery, and leaves
politely, his comings and goings as quiet as rainfall.
He doesn't mind plastic skeletons in trees
or slash-lines made of lipstick on our bodies.

There's no flood, in the October heat, or rainfall.
The man doesn't bother anyone. Nor do the trees.
Later, he leaves, taking the bodies.

If you love this newsletter and the principles of press freedom and independence it supports, subscribe, donate, pass it around to your friends with praise and cheer.