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Teresa A. Phipps

anatomy

In the tenement

of the body

generations have left

their mark.

​

On the stairwell

of bones and the

walls of flesh

illegible words

​

are scrawled

in invisible ink.

Windows look down

on concrete gardens

​

where live buds

force themselves

from sticks

of trees.

​

The genes are doing

their scheduled work.

Clutch the banister,

hold on tight.

late september song

With the sound of

a freight train

rushing

through the trees,

the first strong

wind

​

of autumn

makes each

leaf

sing the song

of its own

execution.

bronze bells of autumn

Alhough I've made a kind of peace

with those I loved who are already dead,

bronze bells of autumn, in their minor key,

toll for the losses still ahead.

​

The weather tells a narrative of change;

the wind prepares a path the geese will take.

This frost is beautiful, and yet it kills.

The harvest moon drowns in the lake.

​

I love the dark (it moves so gradually)

but love still more all it will erase:

these swarming leaves, this pungent smoky air,

the youth you were, your aging face.

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