Deirdre O’Connor

Ode to September

If April is the cruelest month, September
is its still good enough looking brother,
drunk and whittling a stick on a porch.

Drunk on red wine, September.

What are the little gold leaves falling
on the lawn? September couldn’t say.

September wants not to think too much,
to whittle until it’s afternoon again.

There’s a voice on a speaker half a mile away,
now trumpets, drums, a trombone,
a game being played it hears little of.

September is telling a story while it diminishes
the stick to a point, tosses it in a bush.

September thinks it can hide from time,
hanging out inside it. If September cares
about anything, it cares about September.

Spilled into, October will verify that
September ignores boundaries, takes

more space than it needs. Its charisma
retains a golden charm

like approaching retirement. Death is not
far off, yet it appears not near.

September can seem perfectly present,
complete in itself, empty of harm,

but that is how it gets to you
and stabs you, every year.

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Deirdre O’Connor is the author of two books of poems, most recently The Cupped Field, which received the Able Muse Book Award. Her work has appeared recently in Diode, Bennington Review, SWWIM, and Up the Staircase Quarterly. She directs the Writing Center at Bucknell University, where she also served for many years as associate director of the Bucknell Seminar for Undergraduate Poets.