Whatever you do, avoid falling for Amazon.com’s heart-pounding message:

Wait! Add $1.75 to your order to qualify for FREE Super Saver Shipping.

I need two new calendars. I procrastinated. Squinting at the miniature January that appears on all December 2005 calendars is bad for the eyes, by the way.

Thus, my foray onto Amazon and my nail-biting refusal to succumb to FREE Super Saver Shipping. I searched for 45 minutes for that perfect, under $5 item to add to my cart. I searched in vain. I bought my calendars and paid for shipping: $4.98.

It hurt a lot. Even now the faint, nagging thought that I did wrong festers in the back of my head. . .

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.