Frost Moon

Bring in the potted plants, trim the bottom 
leaves of wild lime to concentrate the energy 
pent up in their stems after most recent growth.
Tune one ear to the garden's deepening notes
and plush, orange-scrolled letters, the other 
to the soft whisk of pages and summer linens 
put away— Do the chalk-outlined gulls ever tire 
of always trying to get ahead of themselves, 
the ruffly whitecaps ahead of the wind, the wind-up
woodpecker ahead of what answers its not 
so secret code? Yet, though so much leathers 
and cracks each day, they refuse to let go.  

Night after night, the cold plummets. 
We don't see so much as sense tiny pearls 
of moisture leaving our mouths as breath.