October

October

This month is gold and black
Houses porches lawns revel

In death's ghouls and broken skeletons

A joke for most just as death is

Witches on broomsticks

For me it is genuine

October's death is mine

With those who made it

What it is

A Leonard Cohen plaint of

surrender

October murdered one love gave another

To another on the Day of the Dead

Halloween expired with

A funeral dirge and a wedding march

Followed by a solitude that is

My dogged companion

How can I look love

In the eye and not see death

How not think of the erotic joy of

Bodies embracing without a skeleton

Bone

Yet neither grave nor vow has taken

My naivete my song my romance

This ever chilling October
So I commit to love again

Bury myself deep yield
To intimacy to touch

Accepting the gold of leaves

Falling with the autumn

October is my tomb my dark

Look back though grounded well in

You