by Carole Anzovin

Here I lie, my virtue spent.
I am the sharp-edged eggshell,
the empty ooetheca,
the crumpled cereal-box liner
without even the dust of breakfast.

It is my brown season,
a color like November,
belly-full with cloudy skies
and the whispering of frost.
I can only rest. Be vacant.
Slip out of my routines.

Dust and cobwebs gather.
The lightest feathering of snow
falls. My bones feel the hardwood
floor through the carpeting.
In the gathered stillness,
only breath can be heard.

Carole Anzovin (she/her) lives and writes in Western Massachusetts. Her poems have appeared in The Cackling Kettle, Silkworm, Impossible Archetype, Corvid Queen, and other journals. Find her online at @sunhearthpoetry.bsky.social and living-vividly.com