On the day of your favorite color:

Here is the day of pumpkins,

their hollow heads lit and leering. Here

is the stripped sweetness of candy corn

cupped in my hands. Here is fall

swirling the leaves into a storm of red-

gold fire. Here is the sunset,

shorter now. And here is memory,

spilling from its orange coat:

your mandarin sheets, your russet

couch, kisses the color of burning.

Here is the day of heartbreak

ripened to glow. Here is the day of ghosts.