Just look at them flaunting their true colors
that have lain hidden under their modest green
robes since spring.

Some leafy one must flip a switch, and the trees
that participate go all-out like the drag queens
they secretly are for the rest of the year.

We, their appreciative audience, stop on our walks,
in our cars to gawk and take photos of such
short-lived seasonal fabulousness

before they drop it all and let us see what they’re
truly made of, standing tall and proud,
each one of them such a beauty.