Reed Rouch

I looked out to the yard

To find the world covered in orange,

Red, and brown with thousands

Of fragments of trees whose extravagant

Green has come to a pause.

My sister and I rush to the leaves

With the tools of rakes and childhood

Imagination. We spend hours collecting,

Shaping, morphing the leaves

Into a fort fit for the domain of the new

Rulers of the kingdom. The walls

Of our castle were soft, pliable,

And seemed to glow in the autumn

Weather. We threw walnuts the size

Of balls we used on the playground

At our neighbor’s adjacent fort and took

The bruises as a badge of honor

After a glorious battle. One day

We walked to the fort to find

The leaves frozen, rigid and oozing

Grotesque water, which had seeped

Into our fragile world like debris

And waste creep into a picturesque lake.