November, and the Bradfords are ablaze
in residential spaces where they grow
each a lone, burning matchstick; now the rays
of setting suns all round about them throw
a panoply of color: orange and red,
like tangerine and pomegranate flesh,
and yet already browning where the dead
and flamboyantly dying cells enmesh.
Ahead another autumn, maybe two,
topheavy, all their fruitless limbs will crack
in middling winds--uprooted then, and new
ornamental arbors will fill their lack.
Many of us are losers at that Game--
though once we stood as proudly, crowned with flame.
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