The Four Seasons

Leaves drop and are grabbed up and spun by the wind, wet with morning dew
but not overburdened.
Halloween specials run all day:
Ghost stories
Haunted woods
Sleepy Hollow
The Baba Yaga.
I sneak the original Halloween on in the afternoon.
The scene when Michael Myers follows them home from school is my favorite.
I feel in that scene when I walk down sidewalks now.
It’s the way the leaves blow.

* * *

“There are mice in my room.”
She doesn’t believe me, but she hasn’t heard them,
running around, getting into the walls and space between the floor and the ceiling.
“It’s too cold.”
She says this, but they are so loud they must be real.
Why is it she doesn’t hear them?
“There, they’re moving. Hear it?!?”
She must hear them now.
They’ve never been this loud.
“No, I only hear the ice on the roof melting.”

* * *

Thunderstorms are never quite like those in Holmes County.
You watch a dark mass float over green farms and hills,
until it’s on top of you.
Now watch as the lightning lights it all up again.
The swings out in the yard are moving with invisible children
who are unperturbed by the rainfall.
You can watch it with a mug of hot chocolate,
or while snacking on truffles from Coblentz ,
or in brief glances out windows while playing Apples to Apples.

* * *

Our last performance of the season was done.
Everyone was invited to Miranda’s for a party.
I haven’t thought of her name in years,
or any of the others.
We played Scrabble in the basement first before going over.
When we got there, we were struck by the size of her house.
When we went in, we were struck by the chandelier.
It seems small now,
a side effect of private school.