After a time screen doors slowly close:
a gray child in the park drifts into the trees,
lost pocket knives bubble into rust,
low voices of red dust drive west to the horizon,
empty theaters are bulldozed
on a street no longer there.
All these days gather in boxes,
come apart, crack like dry leaves,
slowly fade.
__________The smell of smoke curls
from a barrel of leaves while my father
reads alone in the kitchen.
The news stains his hands black,
and outside I dive into the raked leaves.
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