In October, You Leave Rehab Before the Miracle Happens by Jane Ann Fuller

In October, You Leave Rehab Before the Miracle Happens

Say the leaves surrender
and it’s beautiful.

Say the yard is strewn
with the brilliance of the defeated

their brittle bodies scratching their music
on your front lawn.

This time, maybe
you got what you need

like this dervish of leaves,
their wildness freed.

If I pay attention
even I can find the sacred

playing footsie on the grass
as the wind picks up

the dead and lays them
at my feet while I wait

on the front porch
for your arrival.

*

Jane Ann Fuller is a poet from south eastern Ohio whose book Half-Life (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions) was a finalist for the National Indie Excellence Awards. A Best of the Net nominee, Fuller is a recipient of the James Boatwright III Poetry Prize. You can find her poems in Anacapa Review, Bear Review, BODY, Calyx, Ekphrastic Review, Hunger Mountain, Main Street Rag, Shenandoah, ONE ART, and many other literary journals. Her new manuscript Darkened Window was a semi-finalist for the Washington Prize and is still looking for a home.