How to turn thirty-six in November
Consider the mouse cuddled in the mower,
the last feral leaf of autumn that thwaps
the ground in a night of soaking rain.
Walls cannot bear this.
Bricks break down when the heart
slips in the inexplicable wet,
when a whole year can turn over
in a sharply fickle wind.
Only the mouse will notice
the first faint sparks of frost
littered like miniature stars
on morning ground.
Christine Klocek-Lim 