Must a Violence

When All the Leaves

9 When All the Leaves When all the leaves fell the wasp nest hung in its gray paper, bobbing in the empty air When all the autumn leaves fell it was like the trees pitched their trash on the ground; the trees trashed everything When all the colored leaves fell off their branches I saw a man hobbling through the changing piles of leaves. The wind accumulated some then re-mixed the leaves; the colors a re-mix When the leaves fell singly down each leaf lay face-down on the sidewalk and left its final exhale there. Each leaf left a leaf-print, it left a chalk outline, signature: I was here, Leaf When the leaves all fell at once I saw a rat in the mid-afternoon. He stood shaking 10 on the open lawn. His whiskers trembled and his body trembled. What’s happening to me, ideal blue day, patch of sunlight on the lawn stuck with fallen leaves— A rusted boat hull overturned by the dock Canada geese nipping up the frayed ends of drying grasses Bells that carry farther in the air A tarnished wedding ring bought at a street carnival When the leaves piled on the ground plastic bags blew like banners in the bare, black branches, waylaid insignia When the leaves got puked onto the ground I saw a beer bottle wedged hard onto a branch. I saw a bumblebee nearly motionless on a blasted marigold. He was waiting for some fold to overtake the stilled glass windows of his wings—Here I will rest— A rabbit who was once nearby that fire bush A rabbit who once leapt down the hillside as I approached 11 A rabbit who once, nearly invisible in the shadow of that sculpted topiary— A tiny rabbit once at the edge of the underbrush A tiny rabbit who once pulled down a stem of grass taller than himself All the invisible rabbits are there now where once a rabbit was ...