The leaves dropped from the trees and scurried into the house
every time we opened the doors. They seemed out of control.
We gave them each a name in order to boss them around,
but it didn’t work. They started nibbling on everything,
and had brief, noisy sex with each other over twenty times a day.
They loved themselves to death, and even when they were dead
they kept scurrying around nibbling on things, eating through
furniture that was like a family to us.
We couldn’t sleep at night because of their noisy lovemaking.
I raked them into a pile in the living room
but that was a terrible mistake – it only made them stronger.
We started living outside in the yard
and it wasn’t so bad
lying on the grass below the bare trees staring up at the stars