Painted leaf

O'Henry and his last leaf

Of hope, of love, and

The twisted fates of life

Though I don't pin mine

On one last painted leaf

Of an autumn next or after,

I know the rustle of a dried

Limp fragment seized up

By the crispy air rushing

Into powdery winters.

That fateful winter for you

It danced at your ankles first

Humoring your embryo facet

Then the parched leaf sucked

A little green from your mirth

Soon drunk on extract of irks

Tipsy with shivering feet I twirled

Encroaching more than the tree

No longer that painted leaf of hope,

Only a perverted destiny of my living.