First Frost in the Suburbs The marigolds' barn-color chips and fades. Their shrivelled buds hang down, knots of dried wood. A slate squirrel, thin in the wrong season, drags its twine tail like a spent fuse. Stacks of trees smoke with the flesh of leaves. The petunias' popped-balloon skin flaps empty sleeves. The frozen lawns - square fields of captured hay; a mutt slinks across them like a practiced refugee. Now every chalky nimbus holds its bank of snow. Cold bands of sparrows walk the plank of sky. A small orchestra of birds warms up at dawn- frantic and lyric as Auschwitz's musicians. -- Jennifer Rose