Autumn Leaves

You lie there in your odd little coats.

Your faces smeared with dirt

As blocks of feet tread upon dusty skirts.

Your hands too, are soiled.

They feebly curl around stones in gutters

And vein-wreaked lips pressed in mutters
For which your heads are forced

Into the ground by the winds.

You see them sweeping through the streets;

Stringy plumes in weathered hats and faces,

Drawn like the grey shutters,

Of the sky which they roam;

Shutters through which light peers.

And their cold hands scratch at your eyes,

And rusty nails break your skin as they cry,

And they twist you about breaking you in.