On the Cusp

an autumn poem

Some of you know this poem from the chapbook it originally appeared in, by the same title, and it was recently collected in Decades: Selected Poems. But I thought I’d share it again here for those who haven’t read it or who might enjoy reading it again.

—JM

On the Cusp

i.

Time condenses
beyond me; the lines
hold a whole season. 
Signs by which to see
when false weather
blurs the real. How 
this God-quiet husk—
what waits to be said—
lights the dark 
swarming toward us.



 
ii.

Underground, I trace 
the changing season
by texture alone. Beams 
of sidelong sun cut 
through a thin slit of glass;
they brace the floor 
beneath me
and move slowly
to hold the table to my hand. 




iii.

The way the light grows 
viscous, gold 
around the edges.
This hazy levitation of grief.
To begin again—
anointed by Your silence—
when August was all I thought I knew.



 
iv.

Alive, finally, in the afterlife
of summer, I walk home
in the gloaming, and the mind
stops chiming. When panic
exhausts itself the colors 
return, the world returns:
Orange bending into red, yellow
blending into lavender sweeping
the horizon, punctured by white 
headlights. The gift is given. I walk 
and watch my hand rock
in its own shadow like a bell.




v.

As the days narrow
and shadows lengthen, burrow
in words that cast light
before night consumes the room
and dead leaves rattle windows. 




 
vi.

Outside of the window
snow devils rise 
and unwind
in horizontal snowfall.
I read the glass, a wordless
book. Wordless, but full of 
phrases—motion and texture. 
An outline of silence
filled in by silence.




vii.

I walk to channel an hour
away from pain,
face in full-blasted sun.
January sun—sudden, startles
the mind quiet. Swallows lift off 
all at once from the power line 
and the sound is singular, a gasp, 
a sheet of thick paper torn fast. 



 
viii.

I wander through 
the shell called winter. 
Hollow wreck of stripped limbs 
where the sun, small now, droops. 
Mindless blessing—
the gift of consciousness. 
I’m stranded in a body 
that barrels beyond me,
splayed white rays 
distorting my vision. 



 
ix.

To navigate pain
with language alone.
The language of the dead
cuts a moment close
and time collapses.
I’m alive in the company. 
“Urge and urge and urge…”
The heart settles, held
by breath breaking
into sound, my body
merging into words.