On a bookstore shelf
 
I find a winter poem
 
scribbled in the dust.

 
 
 

Is it wind I hear,
 
or autumn’s bony fingers
 
clawing at my door?

 
 
 

I snatch at the wind,
 
which slips between my fingers,
 
laughing as it flees.

 
 
 

When I write poems,
 
blackbirds fly from my fingers,
 
wrens leak from my eyes.

Jelly

 
 
 

making plum jelly
 
on an autumn afternoon—
 
purple-stained fingers

Unwrapping

 
 
 

trembling fingers
 
unwrapping the straw mat
 
for the last time

Trembling

 
 

against the saucer
 
a thin white teacup clatters—
 
her trembling fingers

Shoestring

 
 
 

tying her shoestring
 
all alone for the first time—
 
her trembling fingers