In the Autumn City

The sky is gold again.

I walk dressed in black and auburn,

seeking dusk-dreams in the autumn city

that I will wrench from my swollen heart,

where they glow like caught fireflies,

and put to yellowed paper, eventually.

In the moment it is enough to observe.

Each home in rose-blush, internal light

as sweet and pure as a lullaby.

The candles continue to gleam in the windows

like gas lamps

or the stars before their deaths.

I see their skeletons burnt out in the windows

of houses untouched

where the shadow of melancholy has yet to break itself in,

where there are no bloodstained sheets,

or rotted enamel,

only ivory keys and full-throated mockingbirds.

Houses where happiness still breathes like a

vine reaching for the sun.

I can almost taste the sweet gold wine,

and hear the records that every father plays

for their sleeping daughters.