Entering Winter

I miss the fig's abundance, wild 
until the sun turned the fruits 

to stone. I long for a life 
I don't completely have 

but that edges close every time 
I sink into the periwinkle of a book. 

Every square of bathroom tile
reminds me of how much work

it takes to purge each spore
of nostalgia from any memory—

I'd prefer it to work like a flashlight
beam in an attic crammed with boxes.

Yet in the world, there's still the muted
gold of oranges, the mossy green 

of broken-off branches; the musky
five o'clock dark in early November,

the days' flame-colored sentences
 just before they scatter in the wind—