A Short Drive into Autumn

September has mottled the forest maples. South of here, zombie cicadas chafe heated thighs, but North of Tippecanoe Shawnee trails lead into autumn. We take photographs, but the green still smothers scattered red and yellow threads. You touch a mossy tree trunk, as if sensing the smoldering fuse that will soon burn stale air into golden sparks - a fire that will paint from the inside out. Too early, she says. We head back down I-75, where summer still consumes the glut and vapor of unemptied trash cans.