Autumn – Cat Dixon
With rake and trash bags in hand, my son predicts rain.
The sky with its parallel lines looks like a cornfield
with blue dirt, or like a map of a city well-planned,
except for the lack of cross streets, or like a thousand
long albino eels scurrying to the horizon.
How do you know it’s going to rain?
He points to the formation—a harbinger
for precipitation. I haven’t heard that word
in years and wonder at its use. Bent over,
he piles the leaves, but the wind interrupts his work,
and the raking turns into a Sisyphean task. I tell him
to wait for another day, but he insists that it must be
done today—before the mud and wet leaves
make the chore more of a hassle. An hour later,
he presents three tied-closed bags waiting on the curb.
The clouds look like ribbons. Yes, even the sky is a gift.
Cat Dixon
Cat Dixon is the author of EVA and TOO HEAVY TO CARRY (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2016, 2014) and her chapbook, THE BOOK OF LEVINSON, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2017. She has poems (co-written with Trent Walters) in They Said: A Multi-Genre Anthology of Contemporary Collaborative Writing (Black Lawrence Press, 2018).