For Thanksgiving Day

yellow apples glazed gold

glow on now leafless boughs

preternatural in color, radiance-

the burning fruit, in the long low light,

hangs above a road-killed deer.

twisted branches and twisted limbs

all bathed in bronze, sublime,

bloody, juicy, in the afternoon sun

stretching across Thanksgiving...

autumn brings death and harvest;

the old year lays out its funeral banquet

and deer broken open like overripe fruits

attract the crows.

blackly they swing, seeming lazy & slow above the splendor

and so too will give thanks this day…