Laura Jacobs
Wind Advisory

On this particularly blustery day on
a particularly warm autumn afternoon,
a leaf blew into my face.

It seemed strange to me that leaves
could have this sort of
aim; it was already yellowed in its
veins and rouged along the edges,
a pretty, useless fruit discarded
from its free-market-minded mother:
Offer me something better or
I’ll have to drop you.

On this unusually blustery day at
the end of a rather odd Indian summer,
all of the leaves were waltzing,
one two three
like Viennese ladies.

Half of the trees lining the road seemed
stoic and unaffected, clinging to
their green abundance and performing
their business, photosynthesis:
Hard labor until the cold keeps us
alive in the winter.

I peeled the leaf from my skin, sticking to
my damp hair, dropping it close
to the Danube. Watching it fly
from my fast fingers reminded
me of watching my butterfly depart,
battered in swift-tempo-gusts,
from the caterpillar to the wings.

I wondered when I had become
the tree with perpetual leaves,
never willing to drop
a little rotting leaf, that little decaying fruit
and let them waltz one two three, never
compromising my tiny, walking legs
for flight.

More winds pushed leaves against
my thighs, each crying for me to
let it drop

and I wondered when I had
stopped moving like
leaves and butterflies, dry prairie
grass and the glowing innards of
fireflies, unchanging water
in your photograph of Vienna,
perpetually in the
One two three.

<< Back to Issue 12, 2008