Samantha DeFlitch

These Going Days

November is the blank-faced month. Like an old woman
counting quarters at the side table, it gives away nothing
of what has come before. It is full of duty it cannot remember,
so the leaf-clogged Monogahela whispers instructions: turn left
at the cool-backed corn silo, come up alongside Rita’s garage.
Inside, you’ll find a young possum unclinging to its mother’s
back, and the possum is like a mirror as the ungiving year
meanders toward its natural conclusion. November: leave us
huddled beneath the car engine, and take the years’ final sounds
with you when you go: bare-limbed and inscrutable as rime.

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Samantha DeFlitch is the author of Confluence (Broadstone Books, 2021). A National Poetry Series finalist, her work has appeared in Iron Horse Literary Review, Colorado Review, The Missouri Review and On the Seawall, among others. She lives in New Hampshire.