November is

November is a snap of the fingers, a flick of the switch; simmering pies, hapless turkeys, a frosty morning rimed in white, still under a lacy camoflague. November harbors a disappearing world, the russeted autumn of October disappearing like yesterday's lessons from the chalkboard, visible but hard to remember, where were we? It all disappears. And November is nut-brown oak leaves as large as my hand spread across the road, frozen in frosting that melts midday, a faint trace of leaf outlining a vague murder in the middle of the road as the frosting drips like MacArthur's Park, a rain forest in the November wood, melting; November is dark in the evening and afternoons, afternoons when the switch of a light circles me back to afternoons practicing chords on a piano, I can hear minor chords, minor sevenths, then I realize it's dark and switch on a light; and November is dark on a cold morning and the fire has burned down and it's darker yet under the covers and even hungry animals remain motionless while November pushes toward the next season with its ads and sales and promises of peace and joy that do nothing to illuminate November and what is. November is a deer hunter's delight and blaze orange caps and camoflague gear block the aisles in Wal-Mart and the hunter's widow gets special nights on the town full of lights and delights that push her to; November is deer knocked dead by autos and darkness; it is deer strapped to car tops and hoods and thrown into pickup beds and hung from poles; it's a mingling of cinnamon and pumpkin and roasted turkey and smashed potatos dripping butter and frost and a fire in the night; a shadowless night; the scent of pine on a crisp breeze; a gale of wind on its own, never mind you, where you are, it whistles past, scuttles the leaves, scrapes against a window pane and whispers soft and low: winter. Aha. Snap your fingers. Flick the switch.