Configurations & November
By Laura Fairgrieve
Configurations
The crow cracks the shell
of the moon in daytime
and a thousand moths
spew out of her mouth.
The apples sour on the grass
as bats roost rightside up
on a field made of snow and gray.
All the crows fly overhead
like inkblot zeppelins,
they tuck in the loose
corners of sky.
November
November whispers purgatory
wrings its hands until
sound sleep and shivers
slough off of its skin
Constantinople has not yet been sacked
all of the wells are shallow
the fox does not know if he has reason
still to fear the bear
whose hibernation may or may not
have taken hold
Hypatia breathes and dreams in numbers
the earth is all one continent still
we could live for years
or winter could blanket us forever
but what is more peaceful
than freezing to death, the old wonder
How long does a year feel in the valley
where we hide behind shadows in Hinnom
to wait out the storm that threatens
but never arrives, nimbus frowns above
and the ground is still dry below
Remus is still alive to say brother
The stars fan the scrim of darkness
the nights are so long now
uncertainty brings us shutters
Is it a warm bed or a blindfold
We almost forget
that the naked trees
murmur a wait,
a rasp, a reprimand, a
wrap yourselves now
in what could be.
Laura Fairgrieve received her MFA from Adelphi University. She is a recipient of the 2016 Poets & Writers Amy Award. Her poems appear in the anthology Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism published by O/R Books. Her work has appeared in Arkana Magazine, Mortar Magazine, Underwater New York, Inscape Magazine, Ink in Thirds and The Bitchin’ Kitsch, among others.