When summer walks to the edge,
it doesn’t take long for the maples
to arrange the sky with leaf flames.
I don’t think of death when it’s time
for them to die and fall to the ground.
And I don’t need to see you again
to remember how you hauled leaves
to the street in your wooden wheelbarrow
and burned them at the curb while
singing La donna e mobile.

Though my memory consorts with thieves,
this image is safe, even when the sun
is late and the moon refuses to shine.