November

Now it's begun: the slow slide towards winter.
Heating pipes cough and splutter into life.
Men recall heydays with a summer wife.
Logs burning in the grate crackle and splinter.
Stores full of Santas, but no queues are forming.
Shoppers fret about the financial crisis.
Shopkeepers worry how loaded the dice is.
Kitsch snow scenes out of synch with global warming.
In the woods, chestnut gatherers, mushroom pickers.
Lovers longing for one final tryst
Before the forest floor is damp with mist
And the earth dank as a harlot's knickers.
Wellingtons. Warm, woolly underclothes.
And on the briar one last, wanton rose.