Late September and maples heavy with early frost 
shimmer at sunrise like a chandelier. 
Her kitchen the only lit room. Her steaming pots 
the only sound. Chimney smoke’s long rope rolls 
across the waking house and pulls Autumn’s shadow 
over north facing windows and walls. 

When I arrive downstairs, morning has passed her. 
Beyond the window, her garden path overgrown 
and accented with cabbages and potato vines 
begins its turn to bronze and rust, 
harvested rows abandoned until March. 
The only sign she was ever here, the jeweled jams 
on the pantry shelves. The sigh of her voice released 
in the late winter opening of a Mason jar’s seal.

Bio: Rick Mulkey