I have grown to hate September & similes

The sun is out in the sky, there are white fluffy clouds, the kind that look like headless sheep. — Margaret Atwood

& apple picking, cardigans,
hearty mums, pumpkin spice
lattes, phone calls from emergency
room doctors, missing Mom’s
last exhalations—

fuck the Equinox—when darkness
catches light & the sun
musters the energy to pretend
summer’s still alive. My mother died
on a Friday in September.

The day was just getting started
when she stopped & the sky
decided to hold no clouds—
like the blue on 9/11 before
the plume.

Victoria Nordlund’s poetry collection Wine-Dark Sea was published by Main Street Rag in 2020. She is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize Nominee, whose work has appeared in PANK Magazine, Rust+Moth, Chestnut Review, Pigeonholes, and elsewhere. Visit her at VictoriaNordlund.com