Poetry

(Photograph by Walker Evans)

a bare room
in Alabama

an old towel
hanging on a peg
so neatly

wood table,
chair

a water jug

poverty

a changing breeze,
fresh as the taste of a new apple,
crosses my bare arms

purple asters,
lush from September's storm,
flood the rocky hillside

like the squirrel in that oak tree
gnawing branches,
building a nest
against the cold,
I must use these still green leaves
still full of life.