Autumn again and we’re both in our own corners of elsewhere. I wonder if you sit by the window, too. I wonder, of all your former lovers, who you’re thinking of. This is that time, after all, when the heart plays sudden death with nostalgia. I know from my window I can see mountaintops even though it’s too dark to see them now. How I felt when you wrote after so long. When the leaves start to turn, I undress. Animals can sense a storm. I wonder if you sit by the window, too. I wonder how much of what I left can you taste. Like omen. Like refract, lovely, portend. I’m accused of fragmenting and it’s likely so. This, what I’m worst at. This, animal.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 16, Issue 4.
Heather Sommer earned her MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in decomP magazinE, H.O.W. Journal, Columbia Poetry Review and [PANK]. She currently lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, Zak, and cat, Jade.
See all items about Heather Sommer