Autumn

I can't come across while I still think
my head is a pin prick
on two grave marble fists.

My pink liquid fingers
keep playing songs
that even my tongue does not know.

I am trying to grow some window trees.
My pretty hands hold up
bunches of chamomile

the women wrap ribbon around my wrists
and I remember the river saying
if my fists are food then what are the walls of your womb.

No one tells me what to wear and so I think of
the water's wide white eyes
and am yellow and blue and brown.

All the others are green
and hold their necks
like quartered columns.

I can see the crenulations of sleep
that mark out the weak ones
hoping for just a glass of amber earings.

I want to know why winter crooks
it's arm across my knees
and keeps me in my seat

while the other women wrap
their coloured skirts around their waists
and cymbol shake in summer.