Winter’s Fall

Poetry

Autumn by Winslow Homer 1877 . Public Domain

“That’s what poems are for,
unlivable love.”

epigraph to “In Lilac-Light”
― Tess Gallagher

i wake up to a voice that cannot be.
thousands of miles cannot shrink
to my name on a ghost’s tongue.

it is an afternoon of our first winter.
i should have heard its loneliness
and let it wear its own coat of truth

but i was a girl with wet hair having
fallen to a sleep of fantasy of a poet
who promised me all myth-seasons

so i instead wake up to an autumn
counting the last of what is left
of us. i wake up to the winter’s fall.

~

Vaishali Paliwal

In response to Fall prompt at Cotton thread by Shobha Roy

Fall Is Here!

Some more of my Autumn poems…

First Autumn

Second Autumn

This story was published in The Cotton Thread — weaving life with words. If you want to be a writer in our publication, click here.