“Autumn’s First Breath”

By: Regan Puckett

The cold winds do not yet bite, still too weak to shake the trees. Soon, the leaves will begin their haphazard downfall, amber confetti flooding the streets. They’ll fall atop carved pumpkins, around curtain ghosts. You’ll find them in your hair, on the bottoms of your shoes, you’ll mark the weeks with their color. You’ll fill these weeks with cider and dancing skeletons, black cats and painted faces. You’ll shriek Beetlejuice, you’ll eat too much candy and forget to brush your teeth. And when you dance, in these winds that do not yet bite – the leaves will dance too.