Framing your face in a fall of locks
—black Autumn, down by the locks,
a scurry of last leaves—across
your brow, across an ocean.
Smell of cardamom and clove;
your eyes like stopping
a flight of late flying geese,
like Winter to send them South.
Above your proud mouth
must be centuries of
independents, all
straightening it just so.
Your hands and waist, the exact
sum of your mother’s,
and hers, and you the products of all
the Autumns falling across your years.