by Chris Farago.
Fall exists as a fantasy in the notebooks of lovers who don’t know better. It’s red and brown and crunching all over in those pages, with no regard to the stem death taking place daily in their midst. All that lovely dying will be undone by the spring, righteous in its ineptitude, painting over everything in monochrome green, having been delayed only slightly by the canyons of white. I don’t have the heart to tell them that I had those same leaves pressed in my pages; I don’t want to say that it’s best if they find that out for themselves, nor do I even want to say it’s better–honestly, if their notebooks and my notebooks end up in the fireplace during a late January conundrum, quick enough before they have time to open both to compare, that might be the only possible outcome here that will spare everyone hurt feelings and bruised toes. All the trees are damaged bananas. They can’t be any other way.