In Fast Fall

In fast fall

when leaves brown

before red & yellow

and boughs bend and create

the long-arched tunnel

of limbs branching

barren twigs

that barely hide the sun

over the road,

a piece

of the broken body of the unknown

animal lies

in fractured shadows.

Acorns drop with age,

and the wind’s growl deepens

in the echo of the hollows.

What significance

inserts itself

into the remainder—

virility left in a mound

by the curb?