"BY MONTHS" by John Grey
BY MONTH
As time crosses over into December,
November corpses,
at the bottom of damp ditches,
buried in leaves,
are almost as still and silent
as the day they died.
Then early moonlight
invokes a kind of healing,
dabs expression on the faces,
encourages the chests
to rise and fall,
stirs the cold blue limbs.
A forest is, after all,
about new life.
Beginnings need impetus
and they get that from carcasses.
But November corpses
don’t break down
into their elements,
they rise up.
The creep out of their crevasses,
reclaim a little of what
they thought was lost.
Instinctively,
they stagger toward
the only homes they know,
and the ones within
who murdered them.
I’m not talking family reunions here.
Think of it as an unexpected surprise.
Think of it as December corpses,
bloodied and beaten,
sprawled under Christmas trees,
in rooms shuttered with curtains drawn,
out of reach of the moon.
Think of it as November corpses
stumbling back to their makeshift graves.
​
​John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Stand, Washington Square Review and Rathalla Review. Latest books, “Covert” “Memory Outside The Head” and “Guest Of Myself” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the McNeese Review, Santa Fe Literary Review and Open Ceilings.