Alex Greenberg

Kneeling on the gravel road, with scores
on your legs like clay, you were

the youngest mortician in Baywood.
Coiling out the spines, taking off, arm by arm,
the orange furs of the dead, autumn leaves.

You were such a gentleman too.
Folding together the parts
that had blown and scattered in the storm

in a way that when the family comes,
by air and by breath,

the picture they bring with them
will be comparable to the body in candlelight.

Every few hours, god shakes the great shoe
in the sky and the leaves spill over us.
God like a great owl in the vivid dark of his prey:

Men have snapped their necks
trying to maneuver the way he does.

A truck coasts down the block,
roaring up the leaves from their
black body-bags.

Trying to push them to the air
before they drift back down again
like a balloon tied to a child's wrist.