redbud tender_square there aren’t going to be many days left like this; warm and bright with dying leaves held fast to hands. i ask a friend for company and am grateful she declines; i assure my husband i’ll walk again when he pouts but i don’t keep my promise. i stroll the street and trudge the slight hill, crunching through amber by the empty baseball diamond, and nearly miss the trail’s entrance. on a bench sloped beside the creek rests an empty mickey of seagrams extra smooth. “what’s here? poison?” i think. “drunk all, and left no friendly drop to help me after?” i let my conscience carry me away from embodying whatever body had slumped there. further up, i regard timbered trees, lanky and laid out across the water—how long did it take for the ground around to erode and leave them susceptible to suspension? how long have i been falling? three young girls in various hues of blue race toward me, hair billowing, and i step aside to let them pass. “don’t leave me alone,” the last straggler calls. and i wish that they’d never leave this insulated moment of childhood. i enter a clearing that is so often a swamp of standing water, now a bone-dry basin of leaves beneath my boots. a desperation’s made me restless; the feeling of flight returns. i had my plans in place but all is shifting. i take a seat on a reclining trunk in sunlight and listen to the patter of maples stir. a cascade of bronze stars falls and i wish that i was anywhere but stuck. 221029 what's it to you? who go blather from