by Laurie Koensgen

November. Null embers in the grate.
Post-flame.       You’re recumbent
on your chair. Even the books
are fading.         Five o’clock shadow
of eraser stubble
along your journal’s jaw.

That hour gained saving daylight?
It means weeks of getting used
to all of these new glooms—
like an understudy, slipped into a play
to find your light     and     chase         the follow spot.

Tonight the clocks fall back.
Into whose waiting arms?
Clocks with their faces lost in bliss for one
indulgent hour, abandoning
the burdens of their hands.

Irritants surface
in this lull month: the dust’s
limp dance to the furnace’s dirge,
the clicks of your lover swallowing
words, the dry asides
of wicker chairs on Zoom calls

and a final fly that has outlived its season—
the ecstatic buzz a long fast will cause.
Languid, zen, it ascends the desk lamp
only      to capsize.
Wrong side up on chuteless wings.

The world falls back
into its compound
eyes.

Laurie Koensgen lives and writes in Ottawa, Canada. Her poetry has appeared internationally in journals, anthologies and online magazines. Recent publishers include Literary Review of Canada, flo. Literary Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, and The Madrigal. Laurie’s latest chapbook, Small Psalms for Moving On, is with Pinhole Poetry. You can find Laurie on X @EkeLore and Instagram @lauriekoensgen.