Turning the Corner
Connie Jordan Green

Turning the Corner

It approaches in black boots,
stomps the zinnias, lays
bare the garden—tomatoes
limp on spent stems, peppers
dark with loss. Night comes
early, the sun a lazy arc,
her face white with cold.

The red of Virginia Creeper
fades, drops to the littered
ground, leaves a lattice
of bare limbs against the shed
wall. Deck chairs huddle
like guests abandoned
by their hosts, left to rain and snow.

Sleet will shine the windows,
polish the streets to the sheen
of old tables rubbed by love,
worn by elbows. Hands cradle
cups of tea while wind knifes
through every crack. Hurry,
hurry
, something says
and we do—hasten all the day
but we cannot outrun it.

Connie Jordan Green

lives with her husband and several cats and dogs on a farm in Loudon County, Tennessee. She writes a newspaper column, poetry, and young adult novels (The War at Home and Emmy). She has two chapbooks, Slow Children Playing and Regret Comes to Tea, both from Finishing Line Press, and two full-length collections: Household Inventory, winner of the Brick Road Poetry Press Award, and Darwin's Breath.