“Cross-Quarter Days” by Anna Tomlinson | Blackbird v21n3

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Cross-Quarter Days

When I was ten,
sadness took my mother
like frost does the field.

After, fall came on
with no meaning at all. Closed door,
mornings pitched toward rust,

needled key left sitting
beside the lock,
withered garden bowled over

with leaves. Still, I carry it in
me: what tin-can lanterns
pricked with screwdrivers

used to prophecy onto the grass.
That earlier world
when winter bloomed

into nuthatches and we all
played with fire.