Autumn Leaving
By Melvin Dixon
For Didier
Vermont leaves under glass,
Your hands working the frame.
Each piece of tree and trail
For an easy reference.
Like the leaf whose red
Held fast for years
By your touch. Like me?
Black as bark, my grainy
Knuckles about to bud.
And on me everywhere
The print of fingers.
My chest become maple,
Thighs branched in two directions
From one lean trunk, one
Swollen searching taproot.
Here without you I prune myself
Repeatedly,
My hands pulling for seeds
Over the paths you took to leave:
Before, behind, and in.
Leaf after leaf of skin
Peels off.
Have you forgotten these?
Notes:
This poem was previously published in Love’s Instruments (Tia Chucha Press, 1995) and is part of the portfolio “Melvin Dixon: I’ll Be Somewhere Listening for My Name.” © Melvin Dixon and used with permission of the author’s estate. You can read the rest of the portfolio in the April 2024 issue.
Source:
Poetry
(April 2024)