It’s a Carhart, the affluent talker told me. And the boots are Timberlands. Catching my look, he waved his hands and said Labels mean nothing to me; quality is what I’m after. Prove it, I said. Remove the tags. But he went away exceedingly sorrowful. ~ S.K.Orr

Don’t be in such a hurry, little one, I said as I bent and patted her head, Yellow tresses beneath an emerald cap. She was standing in the grassy median In the parking lot and as I looked Down at her, I realized her Impatience was going to cost her her very life — Killing frost is forecast for tonight.   ~ S.K. Orr

I cannot carry my ambition from One room to the next. No sooner do I Lift it to present it, it overflows And ruins the tray it sits upon. So I Am constrained to limit what I plan To teaspoons, which, if I hold my breath While gripping them in my palsied fist, Are adequate to take what I conceive From my battered kettle to the wind. ~ S.K. Orr

My old body would not be beautiful thrown On some muddy, rock-pocked road. No, I Missed my chance at a furying end, instead Staying on the side and ebbing slow. No altar will want me, no brass horn will sound And fantasies of glory will melt away Like chances, years, plans, fogs at dawn.   ~ S.K. Orr

He stands like a monument, framed In the streaked panes, hands curled Around grips like the ones on a Forgotten trike, the light scaffold supporting Him in his goings now, and he bends His face towards the glass, feeling the chill   On his cheeks, and he watches them. Bright, strutting crimson and deep, smoldering brick, Waiting as if for a bus or their luggage, Settled on their dead blackberry cane. His eyes widen at the art of their mate-ness, And he translates for them in a whisper   Softer than dust – Do you want to be with me? Yes; Do you want to be with me? Yes. —…

Cold Coming Dust speckles the stove Insects sleeping in kindling Wait for the first blaze. ~ S.K. Orr

Paper Dragon   Looking up for the deadly thing I made such a berth around in the days Of blossoms and blooms, I see you swaying there, The color of storms, in the dissipating Fire of December, barely attached to a Matched limb, and only a fraction of your Former glory, your warm, dread, gray Glory. Looking down and away from your Tatters, almost embarrassed to gape at how the Weeks have chiseled you, I see the dark Patch extending before me upon the Flag rug of leaves, the light only Behind me now, only behind me now And I draw my flannel closer around me, Knowing that in time,…

Autumnal Equinox: Three Haiku i. Humid mid-morning Pine straw shrouds the roots of trees First day of autumn. ii. Hummingbird watching — High in her willow, she spies Him sip his coffee. iii. Birdbath full and still — Liquid ice,thawed rink; but soon Wrens will skate, not splash. ~ S.K. Orr

  It’s a bit early, but as I anticipate the fall, I’m already thinking of the witchy evenings that give rise to speculations, whispers, quick glances behind. Indigo Flame It’s like a thorn tree that throws no shadow Across the moon-smoke field in the fall The thing your dreams insist really matters Looms up behind you, impossibly tall From underneath the dark coat you are wearing A wingless bird flies free to the clouds And when your heart sweeps past normal caring You hear him sing through the mist to the crowds But you forgot the figure behind you And so you swivel to ask him his name But you…