Not Gray Not Yellow

Elizabeth Kerlikowske

Fall is my grandmother’s cloche hat
pulled down tight of over the barbs of her hair

Leaf smoke rustles the shrubs

Eye-watering season of caramel apples and pie
skitter of maple spinners on pavement
down the yellow line like sixteenth notes

leading the cortege to Pioneer Cemetery

My grandmother’s hat flies from her head
when the north wind grabs a raveling

Mother Nature’s shenanigans
She tricks us into morning,
crackling twigs of tomorrow bent in the finite dawn

My grandmother throws off the grave

Who will clip the hair of the headstones
when the ancestors have gone home

Howling headstones call to the memories of elms
in what passes for Lithuanian

Geese catch the hat on the nibs of their beaks
and glide it down over the state’s mitten

Our fire dances in the thick silence of snow
There is nothing left to want

Elizabeth Kerlikowske’s latest book is The Woodworker and the Witch, and last year at this time, The Vaudeville Horse was published (Etchings Press UIndy). She is active with community organizations involving poetry and volunteers at an alternative high school.

Find this piece on page 26 of Issue No. 2.