Two Poems by John Brantingham

by John Brantingham

This Season of Acorn Squash

The acorn squash

reminds me

not of the holidays

but of middle days

in October

when the chill

sets up a need

for warmth

and conjures

my dead

who arrive

to help

clear my mind.

I lose

myself

in the quiet

of a midafternoon

house

and draw rich

butter-steam

into my lungs.

Yellow October

The woman on the other side of the park

calls into the woods leading up the hill.

This morning, a mouse was running

through my side garden next to the wall

of my house trying to get in

where it was so much warmer.

It’s cool this autumn, cold almost,

and the woman is worried about her dog,

and the mouse about staying alive,

and I’m worried about something

that happened forty years ago,

one of those childhood memories

that can’t be fixed because everyone

in it’s dead except for me.