Rimed pumpkin puddle

burst in a flurry of fans,
curled parasols march—
 
hokku or no,
let’s color outside the lines now.
 
What gruff gem packed thick with
orange pulp pawing at silk-slick
sides cinched dense as an infant’s
 
skull, slopped out on the stoop
as a sparrow relinquished from
ginger jaws of a cushion and
cream cat, baby fat sagging
to some soft scowl, and
 
the virulent yowl caulked orange with
gargling marbled-up amber and candy corn,
what fat fuse snapped, licking its flickering tip,
what bewildering powderkeg boil buffed 
orange as a flame contained in a glaring gash
of glittering glass honed dull
as a snowglobe—and, 
 
all for a fear of it marring the concrete,
leech-like, beet-bright, blood bid thumbing the
diamond-cracked navel of Otus’s grandson,
mumbling, maybe, red rum or a murder
of slanderous anagrams; kicked it, scrunched
 
like a half-crushed can half-cocked across
bale-frail stocks of a balding taxis; days
escape us, sniggering, rapt, and pie
-eyed, cockbead days bid digging 
 
the pins from what pine-rimed pumpkin puddle, left
burst in a flurry of great green fans thrust,
ushering scows across scowling seas,
the lime-ribbed mast heads teetering, twisted,
awhir with what blame-warped witches’ fingers, 
summoning comely reins assuage its breakneck
heat, curled parasols marching, treacly, shunting
or shouldering soft parts, clementine-suede,
all the peridot cauls of these half-formed faces
framed—the tupleted glands of a bandstand 
                 resurrection, barnacled hulls careened
                 and spluttering husks sloughed, sobering,
 yearly.