Change of Season

Photo by Ari Koess on Unsplash

How’d it become autumn
with a chill nipping at my heels
when just yesterday my toes were
like sausages simmering in summer?
Socks nesting in my top drawer
through a bear’s reversed slumber
now curling round my bare skin.
My feet encased in shoes
grateful for the warmth the open
air no longer provides —
yet missing the abandon of sandals.

I used to think fall referred just to trees
shedding their crowns to gather snow
with bare and bony arms. But now
the fall describes how my body
and mind suddenly occupy a different
space from the long languid days
of August. Dropped into a new scene —
the change so swift I’m still dazed
by the shift — barely remembering
how I arrived.