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.

BY SARAH FAWN MONTGOMERY

I know the weight of a home

too small, spiraling

the self to fit in a darkness

that requires shrinking

in order to be held

close by the walls

pale pink, luminescent,

the smell of salt and brine

a terrible comfort,

sound of the sea

swelling around desire

to disappear, exposed

and soft as you leave

a home that never

fit, the filth of family

wet and stinking

at your scuttling feet

dragging tender vulnerabilities

across the hot sand,

seagulls circling overhead

to cry danger at your escape

the search to claim

a space in another discarded

shell, home a construct

you must accept

if you hope to survive

the tide or the muck

of rotting kelp,

the children’s urge

to crush you underfoot,

father skipping you

like a stone to ease

his bored disappointment,

and how you shine,

comma of tail tethering

you back as you crawl feverish,

afraid, toward something new.

Sarah Fawn Montgomery is the author of Quite Mad: An American Pharma Memoir (The Ohio State University Press, 2018) and three poetry chapbooks. She is an Assistant Professor at Bridgewater State University. You can follow her on Twitter at @SF_Montgomery