2 February 2008 | Vol. 7, No. 4

First Fall

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.

About the author:

Jill Alexander Essbaum's newest collection, Harlot, is available from No Tell Books.

For further reading:

See the complete list of work by Jill Alexander Essbaum at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 7, No. 4, where "First Fall" ran on February 2, 2008. List other work with these same labels: poetry.

42opus is an online magazine of the literary arts.

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