2 February 2008 | Vol. 7, No. 4

First Fall

by JILL ALEXANDER ESSBAUM

Then Winter.

Then Spring.

Then came those seasons

That splinter from the seasons.

Then came the ring

That I wore without good reason.

Then came my treasons.

Then came my entreating.

Then came that tincture,

A dropper-full of digitalis.

Then came the worry I was made of glass.

The panic that I'd snap into halves if moved.

Then came the poorly-lit room.

Then came a deep, narrow wound

To the heart's most lived-in vicinity.

Then came the sog and the slickering.

Then came the Möbius band's singular surface.

I wondered would it hurt us?

I threw my husbands shoes at a reluctant wall.

Then came the Phenobarbital.

It was a premature defeat.

But it is mine to tell on me.

Then came days grown long and summery.

Then came an undisclosed treachery of eels.

Then came the rawest of my deals.

Then came the wheal, the welt, the wallop.

Then came the break-up.

Then came the crack-up.