What Fall Aren't Leaves

The bedrooms are half painted.  The floors—kitchen, bathroom—scuffed already.

L sets a box atop a gravel-colored counter.  She wipes dust from her fingers onto sky blue sweatpants.  Tiny ants, maybe termites, march in line to the sink drain.

Outside, D thumps an open palm on the worn white door.  He is still without his key.

At night, rabbits munch grass and weed alike in the backyard, and a skunk is slickly determined to rummage our trash.  I hear the bags tumble as I step to the porch for a cigarette.  To my right, the light of the elementary school and nearby street lamps blend to cast a yellow glow on our street corner.  The school's glass doors shine.  It's 12:17 am, and two children are running its halls.

Flat, wide pods flutter down from our trees.  Three of them, behind the house.  D tells me they are Maple.  Seeds the size of small leaves.  Large enough to signal autumn in the mind of a tired smoker.  Nature's sleight of hand—but tomorrow will be ninety degrees, as will the day after.

The skunk struts from behind the old garage.  I flick the cigarette butt his direction, and he darts to the neighbor's bushes.

L is gone.  At T's or R's or M's apartment.  Her bedroom door, left open just enough to see that no one's inside.

I don't sleep, and by morning the skunk becomes three different cats—black, orange, gray—and I don't notice but the children are gone, and the school's lights are out, and D shuffles out to the back porch, his eyes, deep stagnant pools.  Yes, he tells me, they are definitely Maple trees.  See how the seeds resemble torn wings?  See how they spin in descent? The whole of the yard, blanketed by seeds.

"The bedrooms are half painted," I say to D.
"None of these are gunna grow," he says.