Slow Fade

by Josh Mahler

Homes one after another—
window light, half-strength, front doors
propped open. They’re welcoming
an autumn afternoon, same as me.

Sundown is coming, the bright tips
of the leaves, cut grass, and somewhere
smoke drifts by. I lean forward, out of the shadows
of my porch, searching for the source.

I won’t write down what they say,
simply listen instead—
bird calls, then crickets, all in tandem
with laughter and the soft clink of bottles.

I feel the hair on my arms
lift from my skin. Winter is near,
season of meditation, evidence of breath.
I recite a prayer, just in case.

When darkness becomes too heavy,
and the rest return with stories
to tell, the final scene will commence
at nightfall — a slow fade that never ends.

Josh Mahler lives and writes in Virginia. His poems have appeared in Denver Quarterly, Tar River Poetry, Quarter After Eight, South Dakota Review, The Louisville Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Potomac Review, The Southern Poetry Anthology, from Texas Review Press, and elsewhere.