November

October drips into November.
I write Today it rained on my notepad seven times,
an incantation to an absent deity, who like me
never checks his phone, only replies to emails
after it’s much too late.
This evening the years pile up
with the dishes in the sink, unwritten words
rotting among the overflowing trash.
I sleep eleven hours, twelve hours.
My awakening slinks down empty streets,
dressed in black, makes no eye contact
as the days loosen and unravel,
their patterns lost, their colors blurred.
Strangers’ lives glow like marshfire in the darkness,
rectangular eyes following me in incandescent anonymity,
hopes sprawling orange and naked behind half-closed blinds.
Far above the wind cries manaháhtaan,
hurling itself hungry against skyrise glass.
The city does not respond.
I write a poem about life;
it stares back at me blankly.

***

Cassandra Jordan (she/her) is a writer living in New York. Her work has recently appeared in Crow & Cross Keys, Hidden Peak Press, Acropolis Journal, According to the Coroner, and elsewhere. She is interested in the histories beneath history and the stories within stories.