In Gloaming
Meredith Stafford
Chasing horizon as it sets,
the tang of autumn
stings my nose like ginger,
earth still and benevolent,
a soft cavity to sink into.
Like the space a tooth
used to fill,
flesh tender and aching:
sensation whole yet empty.
Asphalt beneath my feet
turns to a dark river twining
through mowed riptides of grass.
Wrens and robins flit
between branches, flurries
of brown leaf-husk wings.
Two young bucks spar
in tall grasses, antlers tangled
between bodies, heads bowed
in the shape of a heart.
Their whitetails flick up and down,
limbs and necks stretching, captured
in a delicate tango.
Deer curl around them,
bodies bathed in sunlight,
warm and rounded like
fresh loaves of sourdough,
twitching an ear towards me
and then relaxing.
The bog stench of still water
stops me,
conjuring images of fly larvae
dancing across the muddy surface,
thin flecks of life breaking
from rice-grain eggs.
A quiet embrace of earth:
the encroaching night sky
becomes an exhale, soft and slow.
My heart is tethered by
umbilical cord certainty
to the satin breeze, steeped
in the gray-blue light.
Lightning bugs pepper the air
to herald in gloaming
as clouds fan out
into a cotton ribcage
against the pewter sky.
Two geese cry out in tandem,
wingspans overlapping,
carrying one another into the night.
I am an infant cradled inside its mother,
floating in utero.