September Love – poetic

September again, my steps heavier, my hips moving with the same uncertainty they did during the time when the child was conceived.  Barefoot I trampled grapes in a red vat, my dress rolled above the knees, my hair in a bun. The crisp smell of broken Gamay Noir penetrates my nostrils. The first release of the fall juices.  Echoes muffled by the cracking of corn roasting on the fire.

I hurt. I miss you desperately. Perhaps you’ve never returned from that September when we first met. Sighing leaves, sobbing skies, cold hands looking to ignite fires. A tango coming from nowhere coiling like a snake around our bodies.  Sweet forehead kisses. On my neck, somnolent bruises covered by makeup.

I cannot stand anymore Victorian self-righteousness, fake politeness – “I apologize for interrupting, I came to slit your throat” – people who speak about gratitude without practicing it, questionable advisers who have proliferated like false parasol mushrooms after the rain. They make me sick. The tragicomedy of this world.  Poetica, Aristotle. Remember?

Here we go again: young, books under our arms, love burning our eyes until we could see beyond the limits of September, philosophy burning our souls, trademarks of Friday afternoons on our skin.  Roman columns reaching the sky at the exact hour when we interlinked our consciousnesses. Pears ripening in trees, branches burying themselves in the earth. Spread at the base of the columns our heated bodies ready to fly. We were not supposed to ever come back.

Why did we, my love?

I steal words from September’s iconostasis. I sew them in a field of dahlias.  I wash my hands and my feet. You take the corn from the fire. The child plays. Blue and white awnings murmur in the wind. The child. The sunrise of the first I love you.

Gabriela Marie Milton
Pushcart Prize Nominee
#1 Amazon Bestselling Author
Books:
Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women (ed.), Experiments in Fiction, 2022.
Woman: Splendor and Sorrow :I Love Poems and Poetic Prose, Vita Brevis Press, 2021.
Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings, Vita Brevis Press, 2020.