Kickbacks

October 3, 1996

The imprinted white

tufts the blue sky

looking like roots from below

frozen by the October air.

They hang among the blue,

the first shade a child sees.

The blue,

not the shade of jazz horns.

The white hangs.

Below

are where the colors loom:

sprung from spruce,

made of maple.

And then they fall.

One by one

or

wind-blown approaching

like street gangs

with no guns,

no smoke, and

no graffiti spray cans.

Unstopped

uninhibited

the colors come.