A Season of Sweet Violence

With fall
comes death
in the form of brown leaves
loving the wind for a final time.

These pastoral mornings
built of red and orange diorama sidewalks,
and bright black reflecting puddles
of clogged storm drains
gurgling at passersby.

Afternoons of
walking hand in hand,
the only oven
to keep fingers warm.

These are the early nights
of rainy applause, hissing, and static
combing through the tangled marigold stalks
as we sweep gardens under the rug.

These are evenings of piling
apple cores and nectarine pits.
Building false castles of hazelnut shells
while the pickling liquid steams
it’s garlic adventures to the tune
of popping tin seals.

That’s nights final breath
of fresh summer
sealed away,
for another season.

Fairness Peck, a poet living in Seattle WA, holds a BA in literature and poetry from Western Washington University and an MA in communications from the University of Washington. Today he works as a content strategist and his work has been recently published in The Racket Journal, Red Noise Collective, The Rising Phoenix Review, Griffel and has a chapbook forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.