Tupelo

The tupelo outside my window turns red and yellow behind pink blinds.

If I were a painter I would paint only windows.

I’m thinking of the creamy stars I could see
from my childhood bedroom, behind the homespun curtains.

All memory is fiction.

It has happened before, that the stars
were occluded, the fogs were brown. In the Middle Ages

ice advanced into the civilized countries.

I’m thinking of migrations, changes in the weather, of the woman

on the bus yesterday, enunciating loudly, a formal
declaration, how she was no longer obligated
for so-and-so’s debts,

black plastic garbage bags surrounding her demurely.
The driver said you’re upsetting me and everyone else. Get off.

And she did, in a huff, gathering her estate.

Once there was a bay tree outside the window.
My neighbor tried to kill it, chiseling at the roots.

Then he died, old Roy. I’m thinking how everything changes.