Falling off at maturity

                                    falling out as soft baby teeth

 

  brown needles

    bicuspids

      brazen

 

            Antlers with their velvet loosened.

 

 

Abscission sounds just like the thief

                                                            nature made it, takes advantage

   of winter

     drought

       the sixth birthday.

 

            Pairs with gravity.  Steals away.

 

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Kasandra Larsen's STELLAR TELEGRAM won the 2009 Sheltering Pines Press Chapbook Competition and is forthcoming in 2010. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has published in various journals, including The November 3rd Club, Full of Crow, tinfoildresses, The Nervous Breakdown, and Breakwater Review.  She lives in New Orleans.