Michelle Detorie, Cranky 5

literary journal

Michelle Detorie

Myomancy*

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
fluff, script of sleep in a clutched hollow.

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.

*divination by means of mice

Michelle Detorie is the writer-in-residence at the Katherine Anne Porter house in Kyle, Texas. Her poetry has appeared in Verse Daily, Chelsea, and Diagram. She has an MFA from Texas State University where she held the Rose Fellowship and an MA from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.

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Myomancy*

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 fluff, script of sleep in a clutched hollow.

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.