shot glass
title
"... brevity is the soul of wit ..."
- William Shakespeare

Patty Dickson Pieczka


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She Died In Autumn

Final moments fall to her fingers,
where they perch like paper birds.

In her chemo-brushed voice,
she manages a joke, but her thoughts

are for her daughter
wandering a motherless world.

This hornbeam she planted
outside her window

roots into deep earth,
searching for strength.

She becomes its leaves—russet,
gold, crimson—coloring themselves

in their finest grace when they
sense death approaching.