FIRST FROST

Now staghorn sumac's red as a turkey's wattle.
The dog sleeps on the blacktop for the warm
sun it stores. The banded wooly worm
crawls everywhere, and dry leaves rattle.

The moon rises as a print of butter,
stars come out, frost on windowpanes.
After the evening wind beds down in pines,
one cricket in dead grass chirps, "Bitter ... bitter."

from Brier, His Book; 1988 ©

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