by April Bulmer
I took off my muddy boots
and hose
at your portal.
I crossed the threshold
barefoot and chilled.
How your dog greeted me.
The wag of his tail.
You held me and stroked
my wavy hair.
Outside, a new moon
and so I resolved
to care for you
and bear us a babe.
For your wife passed
in the season of ripening anjous.
In dreams, she rests
in an orchard of fallen fruit.
Bruised as a pear:
jaundiced and blue.
For there is a god
of dying flesh and autumn dew.
A god too
of fertile then pregnant moons.
— from Juniper Volume 1, Issue 2