—I’D HAVE A CARDIAC IF I HAD SUCH LUCK

 

Fall

 

The leaves trundle like curdled scrolls across the road, like hands clasped without an object or a hand to hold. A deer bucks sideways, missing my oncoming car. An owl shifts her head counterclockwise as the wind whispers prayers and profanities, every cedar trembling or else waving a white flag. There’s gold in the earth, someone once told me, nuggets as large as missile casings. I was so much younger then, but now I pull to a stop and kneel down, right here, partially to pray, but mostly to claw my hands through the harsh and moist soil, searching for fortune like a blind man who has lost so much but not yet his sense of touch.