September Shoes
            Why do things get so colorful
            before they’re about to die?   Joe Safdie, September Song

Red shoes run faster
with burnt sienna hair.
Red wine tastes richer, a dark grape dare
on the lip of crystal. Simple pleasures

rise to the level of their own complexity.
Red cars sleeker, seeking the color
of speed through vermilion temper
tantrums in the looped-back miles of memory.

Red leaves fall on a slate-surfaced pool,
hold the nests of salmon
clinging at shallow edges,
redds hold eggs with great round eyes,

open for  clues of the return road.
Flames flickering in a fire dance,
red party dresses with flashing skirts
inevitable unexpected laughing
in the cold crater of a silver moon. 

Red fox foraging in tall grass,
the small mouse silently rowing
her little boat through the long meadow.

Nipples bleed red streaks in the milk, garden rose
bleeding on dry ground, back to the wall,
                        thorns flashing like switchblades,

Red ponies with dragging saddles,
an acapella song in the dusty aftermath
of internal battles on the narrowing path.
The smoked honey smell of autumn,

leaves turn wetly fallen on fermenting fruit,
and where is the edge of orange or purple
and what does she suffer to bleach out or bruise that way,
in the dark matter stretching between stars,

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Copyright 2007, Judith Roche.
 All Rights Reserved by Author.