May I

  I want to tell you, because you’re away, that   it is dark yet and a week to November a week and a day.  those folks I know   will grow more in their bones they’ll coat themselves against the cold and go   out onto the stony shoals where just moments only moments ago a late fawn and her still   mother doe stood to look in the kitchen window, the dawn light, the wife measuring   one and two and two more spoons of espresso grind, test the tap with two fingers and a thumb   and cant and decant.  all the ritual ablutions to stave this chill.  but oh to breathe   the same very same air, a chuff still hovering, the two deer disappeared as soon as the latch   is lifted and the sun yet hovering underfoot of the mountain and the red in the maples   waiting to show off their tiny night diamonds frozen on every dendritic vein, shivering…