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2 Poems by Francine Witte |
Left Only With November Leaves, the color of crushed pumpkins, crack under the heels of warmer shoes. Only the hands of forgotten lovers ever get this dry. The earth must be on that part of its circle away from the sun that spins season into season, silent as a landscape made from the bones of trees and the hard November floor. This reminds me of the Christmas I opened a gift, and it was mostly tissue paper. I wanted to clothe it back into its silver wrapping so I could once more believe in its promise. I don't like the gust of my own breath being the only reminder of life, that startled second each year when I see it for the first time, or realizing again that what I saw in the leaves of October weren't really colors at all. Promise That word with a halo. The wife leaves it on the table. Even when it's broken. She wants the company to see it. Before they take off their coats. Before the drinks are in their hands. Soon alcohol begins keeping its promise, the way it likes to for awhile. The husband comes in. He is thinking of that other promise -- mid-life and its menu of old age or death, he is thinking this behind his smile, and a woman smiles back. For this moment, mid-life is a liar. No one's growing old tonight and death is busy elsewhere clipping airplanes from the sky. The husband becomes a stranger, the kind of man whose hand he wouldn't shake, but the woman is warm and waiting for that edgy promise heartbreak always makes. And then the wife, ventriloquist in her own skin, keep moving, keep talking, as she holds up the promise her husband once made. and all he sees are cracks. Finally he slips out the back and, giving one last look, he decides to make no more promises that only the future can keep
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