Time to consider last things, review the life I've written for summer stars, gifts I've given to cities of snow and their mayors, the finches, and to my sons, my kings to come, and to Linda, who knows me and knows how little I've given. Toppled cornstalks lie beaten in the dying garden. Pumpkins, their leathery leaves glistening with a skin of ice, face the earth head-on. Grey tomatoes drop, gone to mush, as our flesh does, in the end, the beautiful end. I lick the blood of raspberries on my palm.
Chrysanthemums bend their yellow heads.
Tonight will finish them. Tonight, savoring the taste of another season ending, I'll write this, nothing but this, and, as always, give it away to stars.