Like an Autumn Day

Like an Autumn Day

By Kristen Hamilton O’Neill

#FallWritingFrenzy

There’s barely a wind

but when it blows

doubt interrupts my amble.

Why aren’t the windows square,

and the roof flat,

and the stone walls bare?

I wonder.

As the aspens quake,

my yearning grows

to climb like the sycamore

on the damp grass

and merely peek inside.

My hands overcome the sleek moss,

as fissured footholds lift me closer.

The tawny blazed leaves

crunch under my stark white shoes

like half-popped corn

sprawled in an empty metal bowl.

Thick, cold panes reveal

cobwebs

so thick and plentiful

they could be trampolines for acrobatic spiders

spinning webs of time.

Curiosity begets revelation

and every door opens

if you push hard enough.

There she lies on the altar table,

as dead as they say,

with ashen skin wrapped in a wimple

so snug around her neck and chin

she looks cinched alive.

I fall to pray, an unfamiliar pose

where bruised up knees meet dust covered oak.

“Welcome, my boy. I’ve been wanting for you.”

Her raspy voice rattles my soul anew

like a gust of fear.

Wanting.

“But I thought you were…”

“Practicing death? Indeed I am.”

“And?”

“It feels like an endless walk on an Autumn day.”