October
by Jack Mankiewicz
The cool sun drapes itself across my bare arms.
The wind brushes the leaves against the pavement:
A mosaic of crisp yellows, reds, and browns.
Watching the last bits of summer drift away,
She stretches her arms upward,
Trying to catch the warmth that still haunts the air.
She tilts her fragile face towards mine.
And her skin
Emits powdery firework blues.
Yet I still long for the days in August that never ended,
When we would spend hours watching the sky,
Wandering the spaces between our minds.
A cloud slips itself over the sun.
Looking up, she studies it, her wandering eyes locking onto
its path,
Trying to discern patterns in the mountainous heaps of
white.
It looks like a wolf, maybe a cat.
It’s an anteater!
They’re just clouds.
Crashing on top of each other,
Obscuring my vision.
The clouds start to coalesce,
And I see her face,
Looking out at me with pale eyes.
I reach toward her hand,
Catching nothing but air.
I try to feel her but all I can sense is a dead, and open
silence;
Like the eye of a storm,
But I wouldn’t know.
I’ve never been in one.
I close my eyes and float away,
Into the frozen blue sky,
Into a cloud.
I look around and all I see
Is a bright and oppressive white.
No shapes, no patterns, no anteaters.
Just a blinding, encompassing white,
Like being caught in the frothy foam of a wave.
Then I remember:
It’s autumn.
Where the air is cold.
Clouds are clouds.
She is gone.
-Jack Mankiewicz
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