(for Joel)
        
What do you yearn for? asks the September girl,
and you make her the answer: something to follow
as the world rolls one way, your thoughts another.
Each kiss hollows you a little more
as you breathe all your yesterdays into her;
until her face becomes a patchwork of all
the lovers you ever knew, a photofit of romance.
Time browns and curls, and your memories
are shed leaves she presses between pages:
a brittle dress to wear, ghosts to poster her walls.