Month I clung

Drew Myron photo

Winter arrived last weekend, already. Soaking rain and thrashing wind. By Monday the air hung still, having exhausted itself through the long night, and the night before.

This is the hangover, the weather inside me.

Last week, a neighbor died. Three suicides, three men, in less than a year. Not close friends but people with whom I waved, and talked, and said how-do. Maybe it was love or work or vague despair. Maybe they heard the low rumble of this winter ocean, the way it can echo every no.


In October

     “Month I became the thorn.”
                 —  Sandy Longhorn

Month I clung
to sun, to bird song,
to long shadows.

Month of first chill, fire
and furnace clatter.

Month of chanterelles
and decay, understory
and apples. Of early nights,
early dinner, deep sleep.
Month of soup, squash.

Month I begged
for more time, begrudged
socks, searched
mothy sweaters.

Month I reached  
for bread and blades,
cursed the metallic sky,
my small heart, slow limbs,
my inability to rise.

Of false frights and deep fears.
Of grip and wish. Month of
the first long prayers.

- Drew Myron
Kestrel, Fall 2014