(for Lisa)

The Sunday we fall back,
after lunch and a play,
Lisa and I walk my

neighborhood with an eye
to the cloudy sky seeming
to darken faster than usual.

Time shifts always feel
jarring for the first few
bars—as we old band

people know well—going
from a predictable 4/4
(stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive)

to a waltzy 3/4 mixed
with a circular 6/8 time
(I like to be in A-mer-i-ca).

And our feet step in
rhythm as the afternoon
winds faster into evening,

not marching in time as
we once did across a
football field in fall,

but scuffing over leaves
suddenly painted scarlet
or brittled brown, not to

mention the ombres of
the Chinese pistache trees
reddening from the top down.

We walk and talk, pick up
the pace on the final block
home, darkness falling along

with the leaves waltzing
(1-2-3, 1-2-3) downward,
surprised, like us, to see

dark so early, as if we’ve
not experienced a time
change every autumn

of our blessedly long lives,
as if we don’t know
what’s coming.