For Margaret

Seasons change,
and every limping day passes unremarked, it seems.

But who can afford to be unremarkable?

Autumn brings with it the whistle of escaping heat –
Oklahoma is finally finished steaming through.
It brings dust on the breeze and swirling dried leaves rasping
across porous concrete, still swollen and dripping with the warmth of summer.

Soon winter’s bony fingers will beckon,
and we will run headlong into cutting wind and the treachery of icy sidewalks,
to the grey infinity that is a constant overcast, and the dull loneliness that comes from missing the sun.

And sunny California waits with open arms and an open mind –
a blank slate, an open book.
California waits with a spring come months early,
if you can only outrun


the winter.