Xenia Kathryn

Sun strung high,
lone bead in the sky
Beating heat onto and through
our heavy sweaters, jackets, coats
We shed them, our second skins of autumn

Farm land and pumpkins,
kettle corn and sticky sweet sisterhood.
Two by two, our goslings totter,
cling, laugh, cry, crunch.

My middle sister stands tallest
and her belly is swollen,
throbbing for the first time
with confined, coiled, cozy life.

We smile at her middle,
pronounced and round like the gourds
the children are cradling.
And she says she'll miss us;
I tell her not to think of it,
but now I see, she was right.
It all went by far too fast.