You make me want to use month
as a verb. Take you somewhere warm,
where oranges are evergreen. It’s obscene
to think of all the wholesome things we
could do together: ride out bad weather on
wooden porches, light garden torches
and read by firelight. Fill cups with
sunsets and drink them in, cocktails
chilled with wisps of widdershins winds.
And, at night, fall asleep in October—
cased in only cracking, creaking wood:
a loud house in a quiet country
snapping and popping among
the low drone of bees. Tell each other
all the quiet lies: that we didn’t waste
time waiting to waste this time. That
we can plan to month again and
again. That if you drive fast enough,
you can get anywhere in a day.
October
B.A. Van Sise is an author and photographic artist with three monographs: the visual poetry anthology Children of Grass with Mary-Louise Parker, Invited to Life with Sabrina Orah Mark, and On the National Language with DeLanna Studi. He is a two-time winner of the Independent Book Publishers Awards gold medal, a two-time Prix de la Photographie Paris winner, an Anthem Award winner for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, a finalist for the Rattle Poetry Prize and Kenyon Poetry Prize, and a winner of the Lascaux Prize for Nonfiction.