November minus nine days

and the evodia tree sheds petiole clusters,
fingered with five leaves or seven,
from the crown down, three stories to the sidewalk.

Withered yellows prepare the way for shoe soles
of a couple leashed to their retriever and baby carriage.
Not yet a kickable pile, though. Not ripe enough

for hurling myself into, scattering my father’s labor,
prepared for burning, heaped on the side lawn.
Now I’m the harvester. Evodia droppings snowball,

slime the pavement, stuff the sewer drain,
glut the gutter. You and I, a lawnless couple, treasure
this titan invasive. So I’m outside like dad-of-autumn,

rake-scraper between gate and curbside,
as if I were a man with leaf-covered grandchildren.

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David P. Miller’s collections include Bend in the Stair (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2021) and Sprawled Asleep (Nixes Mate Books, 2019). His poems have appeared in Meat for Tea, Lily Poetry Review, LEON Literary Review, Solstice, Salamander, Tar River Poetry, Kestrel, Riddled with Arrows, Nixes Mate Review, and Jerry Jazz Musician, among other journals.