Late October Friday, Madbury Road by Matt Stefon

In a couple of hours the rain,

as if giving what it had been

holding back—a summer's worth of water

to bust the drought at once,

making up for lost, dry

time—would shock the gold trees

bald, then leave them on the roadside

like mummy monks begging

a midday drink. But that would be

all then. Under the dimming sky,

that wasn't here yet. What was here—

charged with twilight—glowing

heads of street lamps showing

the yellow path free and clear.

Matt Stefon lives and writes north of Boston. He is the former religion editor for Encyclopedia Britannica and teaches comparative religion in Norwich University's online degree completion program. He has self-published three e-chapbooks of poetry and has his first print collection, Shaking the Wind, forthcoming.