All through the amber afternoon,

songs are wrung from the mockingbird.

Our small appliances cough and complain.

I’m faithful to changing leaves, their loss,

their excited, delicate yellowing.

Baffled, duped, I step to the brink

of repeated mistakes. You and I could

invent a language—sibilant, liquid.

Take my hand. Let’s walk

into the rattling leaves. This flat

path winds through sand. An ocean

pulsed here, a long-lost sea.

Night rolls in like great numbering

waves, adding, subtracting.

Even machines get tired sometimes.

Gaskets leak. Rotor blades fail.

They make small noises

as they fall toward each other.