November bore a balmy morn
after a week of frost
and recalled September’s golden girl
we’d given up for lost.
Nights grow long, yet chill relents,
though nature’s half undressed.
Abuela in a tattered gown,
hair a graying mess.
Winter is a callous aunt,
Summer her glowering son.
But in Autumn’s muted madras,
a kind of sweetness comes
amid the wreck of bloodied leaves
and contraction of the days.
She lies with me a moment
and I pretend that she might stay.
