The Light in Autumn
Someone was weeping,
wailing really; it was hard
to know who because we wore masks
in those days—perhaps we do still.
The light outside was, as they say,
autumnal, as lavish and unforgiving
as god. The wailerdidn’t stop, and eventually,
because no one gets in or out
of Kroger fast, we tracked him,
a bagger, bawlinglike a child, some of us
asking each other if he was
okay, knowing and hearing,
of course, he wasn’t.