Howie Good

OCTOBER RED

We were having tea in the kitchen
when we heard the howling of sirens
& went out on the porch to look.
A wolf that had escaped somehow
from a late Russian composer's music
stared back at us from the lawn.
Everything was bathed in red October light
as in a dream or fairy tale.
I felt a searing heat on my face.
Small flowers sleepwalked into extinction.

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Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Dreaming in Red from Right Hand Pointing Press and Cryptic Endearments from Knives Forks & Spoons Press. He has four chapbooks forthcoming, Fog Area from Dog on a Chain Press, The Death of Me from Pig Ear Press, Living Is the Spin Cycle from Redbird Chapbooks, and Strange Roads from Puddle of Sky Press.