Love Poem

Someone asked me this week if I still had it in me to write love poems. I'm not so sure, but here is something close.

October

I am in a room with October.
She is wearing a crimson sweater.
I lean back in my folding chair,
and ask her quietly
(so as not to interrupt the speaker)
where she will go when she leaves here.
She makes no reply but a shrug of her shoulders
as if to say “its better if we don’t think about it”.
I turn away in mute agreement.

In my mind, Winter, dark, long haired, waits
in the outside street with an unlit cigarette.

I am early September--Summer and Fall
at once--my gift, my curse.
I am laden fruit trees and their fallen uneaten fruit--
heat, sweat, youth, sugary popsicles.
People drive for miles to see me.
I pull the leaves from the trees.

I tell her all this, in a fierce whisper, leaning back.
“Then what do you need from me” she says after a pause,
“to stay close when my days are short.”
“my days are shorter”
“ok then, to come be September.”

She looks forward to the speaker at the front of the room
And says nothing.
I can tell she is very sad. I ask, “who is that guy anyway?”
“He is God. He makes the seasons.”
“Today, I hate him.”