The Bone Orchard

This autumn, the leaves

remember blood for me,

their bruised colors deepen

before staining the earth,

and they fall already wounded,

crumpled into clots,

drying where shadows form,

as though death watches.

Here, a thing beyond autumn

is altered inside me—

a small black wind

whirring under the bones,

as I remain strangely alive

after so many deaths,

wearing my pulse lightly—

In the season:

Blueberries, darkening moons.

Black cherries split open,

their mouths full of night.

And wood fractures in chimneys,

exhaling old ghosts

into the roofless eve.

There is still shelter—

a small animal’s warmth,

one lamp, a window,

and beyond the glass,

the world’s cold crown

moving in silence.

How long among crowds

did I practice vanishing,

while begging to hear

and fearing to be heard?

How long I longed

until longing grew teeth,

and its silence wore me.

Then I found it—

my face beneath faces,

my mask without pity,

the one that survived.

There is so much

the night returned.

So much carried

before knowing its name.

So much buried—

that still knew me.

Marni Fraser

0925.2026

VI:XXXVII PM

[2025]