Fall Fever

Everyone is getting into accidents.
The woman who delivers office supplies.
Bill's daughter.  The lawyer next door.  Bill. 

They're all moving around
like flies into window panes.  Traffic
is backed up on every freeway.  Intersections
are a maze.  Even I
almost drove off a cliff—
metaphorically, anyway.

It might be this change of seasons
hovering in the air;
a rarefaction of
the autumnal kind.  It's finally cooling down
from the wicked summer.
We are hovering between heat-lamps
and ice blocks; the perfume
of hot garbage behind you,
freshly frosted glass
a few steps ahead.
It is the time and the place for distraction;
an occasion for remembering the things
one hundred and ten degrees made you forget.
The flies just want to go outside
and unravel themselves out

of the space between window and curtain.

The perfect weather
is the kind you don't notice.
The kind that renders temperature
nonexistent.
This is the weather
where you can get lost among thoughts
or die
without even knowing it.