Listen to Autumn read this poem.

‘Sometimes it feels like it is over and it’s not.

 Sometimes it feels like it has just begun and it’s over.’ — Juliana Spahr

This whole account will be written for you — yet will barely be

about you and so — O, I’m in dispute with these words, distracted

by the task of detailing flowers — bouquets brimming in escape

poses with rosette trimmings — weighted by childhood, the upbringing

of it all — dominating the core of this figure, this form — never priceless

or refundable. Tell me this is terrible, and I’ll believe it — not for need

but for the sake of it — it’s all for the sake of it — an idea, an empty

bladder, a chamber to fill. The frills of naivety render me as unkind

as the assumption anyone has ever been innocent — with a window beside

a bed overlooking a lake to bathe in — after a breakfast of poached pears

and cream, stalks left intact — a cinnamon quill endlessly bobbing about

the boil. And while we evaporate into things that keep happening — a poet

may be positioned in front of a grand piano — they cannot play. No matter

what’s requested to be read, some poems will enter streets — I hope for more.