October In Connecticut

by Lissa Staples

I am walking Beau around the puddle known as Swan Lake.

Well, it’s a little more than a puddle but I’m from Connecticut

where most ponds dwarf this cupful wherein no swans swim.



Beau the boxer, eighty pounds of four-legged joy, is bounding

deerlike along the shoreline whose woody smells remind me of

back East and the broad lawn which my father raked every fall



into one long cornucopia of autumn through which our dogs

chased each other, the tunnels of terrier undulating with their

bodies. I too ran through the ruby valentines and coins of gold –



leaves still supple with sap - breathing October, shivering with

happiness while Father watched, patient and nonverbal, content

with my presence, steadily assembling the leaves into a pyramid.



A last chance to cannon-bomb before the book of matches

emerged from his pocket, the tiny stick tugged free, the snick

of the head against the striker strip, the flare of phosphorous,



the miracle of fire. My father bending to touch the tiny flame to

compass points. The blue-gray billows. The crackle of the burn,

both of us watching the smoke curl over the trees. This was when



I felt closest to him and didn’t question his habit of silence

as the façade of the house patiently observed the ritual, my

mother’s face in the window, the distance between my parents



not remarkable then until, like the leaves, one fall he was gone.

But I knew nothing about such things, only that the next morning,

on my way to the bus stop, there was the lawn, pristine except for



one scorched circle. In my coat pocket was the maple leaf I had

saved, still red with love, curling like a hug, safe in my hand as if

one can truly hold something as delicate, as perishable, as love.