In the bedroom of November as November
makes its rounds, a mother’s whisper circles.
A mother’s babies inside the stairs;
A mother’s daughter in the bath.
Dim bodies in dust beneath the furnace,
A subtle organization of the darkness;
Life in the margins of a house, a house
going round in November.
In her bed, the daughter stirs as the mother
reads. The mice are writing too.
The alphabet of nesting, the hoarded
Baby in a cradle, mouse in a hole.
Daughter in a nightgown, mouse in a hole.
November sky in the street’s puddles;
water revolving beneath a bridge.
Mother and Daughter like old sheets,
barley visible through brittle lamplight.
Mice flickering like November snow,
barely audible in a widened wall.
published by Cranky Literary Journal
*myomancy is a form of divination by means of mice
Robin Reagler 