it’s winter, nearly.
his days indoors
feel like that’s a lie
but it is not.

cold dawn
stretches into cold morning
then into cold darkness
with only a bit of sunlight
warming the in between time.

in his front yard
two hibiscus bushes,
one under each window,
are done for this year
with their business of blooming
and pulling in bees
to stumble clumsily in and out,
in and out.

in his front yard
trash piles up a little now
on rare occasions beneath
branches now almost denuded
with leaves still hanging on
amid a rising number
of brown, tough
seed pods that only come off
unwillingly
when one
tugs at them.

he calls himself a boy
but he knows he isn’t. calls himself
a man but he’s not even sure
of that.

one thing he does know:
there is a gap between
being adult
and being old and he
sits puzzled in that gap
much as trees hold onto
leaves, cling tough
to seed pods — unwilling
to let go and see them fall
into the rubbished earth.

winter comes on
inexorably enough
that he can’t debate it.
instead he’ll try
to let the trees stand alone with
wind in the thinness of their
branches, the density
of their futures
held so tightly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T