Autumn Told Me Bedtime Stories

They are trees. But they are also hard candies: cherry red, bright orange, apple green; round and hard in their shiny tin cases. Brilliant yellow feathers cocked sideways in hat brims. Curving icicles, deep red tinged with frosty pink tips. Dark purple and olive green, gut-wrenching nostalgia. Liquid-fire down slick throats and brick-laden air that pulls you down as you suck in, turning cheeks rose. Silhouetted against a slate gray sky, oil pastel, heavy and dense, a blanket foddling us as we drift, drift, drift... and the leaves, tumbleweeds dancing 'cross cold barren land. The energy falling, dropping dangerously, suspended animation in deep blue oceans. Colorful skirts, swirling whirlwind, sleepwalking to the dark caves of sorcerers, moon full and heavy in the sky, quivering like a drop of water on your lip.