Autumn Comes to Philadelphia

Tree-lined streets--
Hawthorn, oak, sycamore--
Cluttered with dead, wet leaves
Maples--red, yellow, orange,
Like firetrucks, stoplights, school buses
Pumpkins trucked in from Lancaster

Sun skins behind skyscrapers
Earlier each evening

A cold northwest wind

Shops overrun with bats
Witches
Zombies

Soon snowfall
Oil drum fires
Mummers
Will fill the streets
But now,
Only dead leaves
New school children
the first frost on my windshield


Mary Jones © 2003

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