Our fruit bowl is broken.
A mirror, cracked.
Outside, part of the fence has collapsed.
The driveway is in disrepair.
Someone shattered a window.
Our plumbing sprang a leak.
Insomnia comes along—
like ambulances in the night.
The next day, you’re gridlocked
behind a funeral procession.
When you get home,
an envelope waits on the table.
He picked up a pen, but it never touched paper,
and in his mind’s-eye his beloved took form.
Then the moon began flying erratically,
all books were washed clean
and from the tip of his pen
a white dove flew into white space.
Silhouetted against such an azure sky
the yellow leaves fall so brightly
it seems the most natural response
to summer’s end to die with gratitude.
They bury themselves in saturation
as though light was the grave of time
and darkness, the briefest of seasons.
Salvatore Ala 