Prayer in Autumn

Reading Tanikawa on the fourth floor,
the words spilled, like fish out of a net,
incoherent and and yet formed into a likeness
of the titilating echoes of these faces--
each other's eyes, face to face, smiling and smiled at--
everyone looking for something to look at,
all while being looked at.

And finally I made it outside safely--
without the book, without my love, without
the patience to remember that I shouldn't do this or that,
without the reminiscences of torturous hours
spent hushed over the sound of a creaking door,
waiting for the first footfall to open up the season
I had expected too much.

In late October, I listen
to the sounds of these thoughts:
not one leaf has fallen.