Gumball Husks

I tell you—

Burning maple leaves smell like toast when it grew on trees,
powder snow squeaks like confectioner’sugar under your boot, like
the coating on cheap marzipan—
(Mar-zi-pan: you know, the orphanage candy
made of almonds and bourbon-scrapings,
leftover lady’s lotion, glycerin, clove-pinks and
cirtronella rinds.)
—Candy in Ohio doesn’t grow
on trees. Pine-cones. Frosted pine-cones. God provides from earth and sky
what doesn’t rot your teeth.