by sarah fawn montgomery

Is it enough

to say I tried?

I could not leave

so I chose to hide.

Dug deep as claws

could bear, half-moon

black and stinking

as the rot of the fallen—

leaves, a hollowed

gourd, the weak

crow—and I know

to envy what is

still beating, escape

the encroaching cold

by building myself

a burial like the garden

beds, the way in summer

I remove the heads

to fool more flowers

but in winter I must will

myself mostly dead

in order to just survive.

Sarah Fawn Montgomery is the author of Halfway from Home (Split/Lip Press), Quite Mad: An American Pharma Memoir (The Ohio State University Press), and three poetry chapbooks. She is an Associate Professor at Bridgewater State University. You can follow her on Twitter at @SF_Montgomery.