October, Where I Go to Find You

I have given my ruin a name, and it is October,
a place beyond the last September
where the orchard sinks beneath a dark sky
and every path leads deeper into the season I cannot escape.

The earth is black beneath the fallen fruit,
apples split open in the dark, their sweetness turning sour
while worms crawl drunkenly through what remains,
and I enter this country each year
carrying the memory of the man I loved
as though it were the one thing in me still capable of bleeding.

He is waiting beneath the last row of branches,
though I have searched for him through countless autumns
and found only traces,
the impression of his voice among the branches,
the scent of rain upon the earth,
the memory of his mouth against mine
when we believed desire could outlive death.

October keeps such things hidden,
burying them beneath its fruit and mud
before giving them back when the afternoon begins to die.

I remember how he looked at me,
how his eyes could make the whole world seem briefly forgiven,
how I believed there would be another year,
another October, another evening in which I could reach for him
and find him there.

Such faith belongs to the living,
and I have learned what becomes of it when the beloved disappears.

Deeper inside October, the orchard grows darker,
and the fruit drops one by one into the earth
with a sound I have learned to fear.

Something sweet is rotting beneath the branches,
something once beautiful surrendering its last sweetness to the soil,
and I think of him whenever I breathe that bitter perfume,
because love has its own manner of decay,
and grief can preserve what time would otherwise destroy.

At midnight I find him at the far end of the orchard,
standing where the branches crowd together beneath the darkness,
his face turned toward me with the same tenderness
that first made me believe I could belong to another soul.

I move toward him, and the distance remains, and still I follow,
because October has taught me that some places are built from longing,
and some doors open only for those who have lost someone
they would give anything to touch again.

I remain until morning begins its pale trespass upon the dark,
when the orchard gives up its dead fruit
and the path behind me disappears beneath the ruined harvest.

Then I leave October knowing I will return,
because the man I loved is buried beneath that orchard,
and whatever remains of me is buried there with him.