Day 2- 9.18.20

September

In Berkeley, in September

the leaves do not change and fall

the way they do in Brooklyn.

Here, they hang on, tired but stubborn,

as if refusing to go down

for autumn's nap.

Here, leaves are still copious and high,

layered thick like a deck of cards,

shrouding fruits with hues

straight from Monet's brush--

the orange-bellied persimmons growing wide,

fat green apples, lemons with bumpy navels,

figs turning a bruised purple, red berries deepening

to black, swollen golden pears and

pomelos, heavy overhead

with their sour rinds;

it's these, the pomelos, that make me stop

in my tracks, the pomelos

rotund with juice

hanging with mysterious dignity

pulling branches into downward curves before

smashing to gravel,

to a driveway surveyed

by an old, grey cat.

I step over the carcasses,

splayed open, oyster-like,

trampled and warm,

the pungent flesh squelching

into pavement cracks.

Why is it

that this smell

of fruit rotting on the sidewalk

sends me back to days with my dad

raking leaves

in New York?