Marriage as Hibernation

1 Minute Read Time

A dimly lit cabin room as it snows outside — Photo by Myles Bloomfield on Unsplash

Our reaping hours 
are wintering 
behind us now.

Neurons now
a thicket of 
blank gestures. Torpor now.

Cold now dropping 
its deep auger.
We low

our heads down. 
We conserve 
memories of

once-clotted rivers 
to dampen
our dreams. Reams

of wrecked light 
where once we were 
sharpened.

Outside,
wasps are loaded 
in their nests.

This dormancy 
is open ended. 
This slog
 
has worn us out. 
Time torn. And so 
surrender.

Our tongues 
dissolve like time- 
release capsules.

And so nod
to the nervous 
code of rain.

Gabriella R. Tallmadge

is an alumna of the Hedgebrook Writers in Residence program. Her work has received a Transitional Artist Residency Award from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, as well as a Tennessee Williams Scholarship from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Her poetry is published or forthcoming in Guernica, Georgia Review, Crazyhorse, Best New Poets, and others. Read more at www.grtallmadge.com.

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