There is only a black fence

and a wide field and a bam of Wyeth red.

The smell of anger chokes the air. Ravens of September rain descend.

Some say a mad mad hermit man lived here talking to himself and the woodchuck.

But he's gone. No reason. No sense. He just wandered off one day, past the onions, past the fence.

Forget the letters. Forget love.

Troy is nothing more than a black finger of charcoal frozen in lake ice.

And near where the owl watches and the old bear dreams,

the parapet of memory bums to the ground taking heaven with it.

Little solace comes

to those who grieve

when thoughts keep drifting

as walls keep shifting

and this great blue world of ours

seems a house of leaves

moments before the wind.