Leaf Season

You kneel and push the drift of leaves back with the flat of your hand. The top ones go first, and the small ones go farthest. Cedar elm, yellow, skittering off over the concrete. Then red oak. Live oak you have to push twice. The sycamores are the biggest and hardly move. They are paper, every one, with the veins cut in.

Beside the door of the ice house a notice is taped to the wall: LEAF SEASON, OCT. 15 TO NOV. 30.

Under the last leaf there is a card, cream stock, ruled in boxes, a pencil letter to a box, and next to it a beetle, sitting still. You wait. It walks a little way across the concrete and stops.

The card says: The light over the door is on. The door sticks: lift, then push. There is soup on the hot plate. Take the leaves with you if you like them.

In the window above the drift a second card is taped to the glass, with frost over most of it.