Hibernal Night Photo: a Foggy Park in Snow
This is menopause. Amniotic fluid stewed.
Roof rot, hanging clot. Hemming
and hawing. The precise moment brews,
spreads, broods over years—contradicts—
smears blood on months of cloths
pages upon pages. My lot.
Little did I know. In December
the river’s tidal nightsweat
soups up, breaks its own numb banks.
Hum and buzz of ice on which
I’ve seen a seal glissade, but now
it’s twilight the lamplight’s switched on.
Memory shambles down
the tunneled path. I hate to double back.
There’s this blue tinge and pink halo.
A crepuscular corona lisps its light,
murmurs in the murk. What should be
sharp spectrum, all ice-pick, pinprick stars
becomes instead a fog-balm warmth—
an abomination. I discern (as if static
could be seen) what might be a pine tree
but through the haze a woman skulks.
Her hair dulls to a milky egg—face
flushed to the roots as fiery as a fox tail glows.
Jessica Purdy holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. Her poems have appeared in many journals including Neologism, Gargoyle, Feral, Dream Pop, Impossible Task, SurVision, and Bluestem. Her books STARLAND and Sleep in a Strange House were both released by Nixes Mate in 2017 and 2018.