Home >> Volume 3, Issue 02

October

Thomas DeFreitas

Cool air, the fragrance of dead leaves, the plume
From a live cigarette, the winds that blow
In late October, the glory and the gloom
Of seven thousand yesterdays ago—

The chronicle of transitory bliss,
The sudden gratifying memory
Of a passionate twenty-year-old kiss
From a girl who smoked and loved immoderately—

Now distant in geography and time,
But very near in thought, immediate
And intimate as trouble with the heart—

The brief joy cherished as a happy crime,
An injury both fierce and delicate
Healed not by length of days or surgeon’s art.