OCTOBER
This sky is sleeping
Except the light on the walls. I want to feel
The way light ribbons across rays
Of New England asters and swaths of goldenrod.
A field of crisp air forgives me for wanting
To drape myself in birdsong. Now,
I want to feel something, anything.
If every slender wrist has felt a thumb
Slip back and forth, to love like autumn
Cruels a room
Only feels like enough.
How tender this falling:
A leaf feels it has been falling headfirst
Its entire life. The trees hold the wind
While there is still time.
Had I been this joy,
Maybe I could have loved myself too.
A bee keeps returning in full sun
as if to share in something so sweet, and I let it
Rest on the rim of my beer glass.
*
Tyler Michael Jacobs is the author of Building Brownville (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2022). His words have appeared in Pidgeonholes, Sierra Nevada Review, Thin Air Magazine, White Wall Review, Funicular Magazine, and elsewhere. His poems have also been featured on Nebraska Public Media’s Friday LIVE! He is a first-year poetry MFA candidate at Bowling Green State University.
