A poem by Maria Isakova Bennett.

A room walled like winter

sky like marble,
late, misting over

ochre and blue lines of horizon;
but the centre is autumn –

one that arrives after a damp summer –
comes as reward, burnished

in woods and parks
and as early sunsets on buildings.

Maybe there’s nothing that can be said
about the table laid with fruit,

yellow and purple worlds
which want their own say because

between fall and decay,
there’s such a short time.

*

Taken from the collection ‘an o  an x’, out now on Hazel Press.