October falling.

Where's Puck? Or, more importantly, where's the woman who tripped lightly through old cities, before an autumn falling strange and almost, almost unspeakable?

Leaves crumple copper underfoot. Shadows flicker drunkenly. Time to contemplate the birth of a new faery tale, the fatal breach of yet another innocence, even as you note the pinesapsticky rosettes nestled in soil black and moistlumpen.

This is loss: a heavy ring, snug cream gloves, a book that wasn't even yours. A piece of cobalt sky, in a photograph where mummy holds the hand of a child that wasn't hers. Blood, catblood, drying dark and inexplicable on the table.

A grandmother you never knew.

And--write it down!, Bishop's poetic dictum--Cassandra, to whom you had said you'd visit, but never did. Gone, at 3, while you dreamt of poets becoming warriors.

October falling, indeed.