by ANTHONY WALTON
High tide of sunlight
recedes into a night sea of sky
and the chill
silence of four o’clock—
above me a southbound vector
of geese drags winter
into place, a blanket
to enfold summer memory
The leaves have gone
about their business—redveined
parchment
on which the season inscribes
the wisdom of the year
and I pull my coat tighter
as a neighbor’s dog barks—
Something new, this fear of early dark
From Issue 12
ANTHONY WALTON is the author of The End of Respectability, Notes of a Black American Reckoning with His Life and His Nation (Godine), Mississippi: An American Journey (Knopf), and other books. With Michael Harper, he edited two anthologies of African American poetry. His poems appear in the New Yorker, 32 Poems, and other journals, and in the Library of America’s anthology, African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song.