The season´s first glamorous leaf,
pirouetting across a windswept stage.
Autumn crackle, too delicate for earbuds.
A chime of hungry kittens behind
a fence, motherless. The number
of times you´ll forget to bring kibble.
A wallet filled with cash, cards,
and photos, open on a bench. What
could have been a stranger´s gratitude.
Our elderly neighbor shuffling bags
while trying to fit her key into the lock.
Fruit and vegetables, scattering.
A baby sparrow, its wing broken,
floundering in a tree surround.
Once, you would have saved it.
The book you were dying to buy last
year, languishing on a shelf, untouched.
The novels you´ll trade for video clips.
The dark hallway winding through
your friend´s sorrow. A heart-to-heart
isn´t as scintillating as a thousand likes.
Tonight´s sky, the glorious spill
of colors. When you finally look up
at splotchy grey clouds—grumble.
Reassuring words I gift you on exam day.
Like lily petals, they´ll flutter off
your back as you walk away.
This poem I wrote for you, daughter,
the images I shaped and polished,
read to you while you were scrolling.
Julie Weiss (she/her) is the author of The Places We Empty, her debut collection, and two chapbooks, The Jolt and Breath Ablaze: Twenty-One Love Poems in Homage to Adrienne Rich, Volumes I and II. Her second collection, Rooming with Elephants, was published in 2025. “Poem Written in the Eight Seconds I Lost Sight of My Children” was a finalist for Best of the Net. She won Sheila-Na-Gig´s editor´s choice award for “Cumbre Vieja” and was a finalist for the Saguaro Prize. Her work appears in Chestnut Review, MER, ONE ART, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and Variant Lit, among others, and is forthcoming in Cimarron Review and SWWIM. She lives with her wife and children in Spain. You can find her at https://www.julieweisspoet.com/.