Blue September

September has always had it in for me.

It lays for me.

When I was young,

The other girls came back to school more beautiful than the year before,

Wearing whatever was the newest style.

Me,

I disappeared down paths nobody knew,

Alone,

Unable to explain myself to anybody,

Unable to explain myself to myself.



September is a bastard,

Neither summer nor yet autumn.

My last drink was in September,

And I want one every year.

The usual dull ache of loneliness

Grows teeth in September

And I can't bear it.



When I have found love,

It has nearly always been in October or November, in the crisp, good heart of fall;

Sometimes in the spring,

But never in high summer.

Never in September.

The ninth month would kill me if it could--

Nine the number of endings.

Nine the number I never want to see again.



My favorite aunt died in September.

9 / 29 / 85

The last time I took a drink.

I go down by the graveyard

The way I did the day they laid her there,

When I was still young,

When I still couldn't shake the gorilla on my back.

I go down there, and I think,

If a devil came out of the ground at my feet,

And I knew she would hurt my heart bad, but make me feel better today,

Would I fall into her arms,

Kiss her on the mouth,

Let her take me down in the dry grass?

Damn right I would.

In a heartbeat I would.



But then,

A crow flies above my head,

The breeze stirs,

And I hear my aunt's big laugh--

The one I loved.

I feel her protection

From September

From emptiness

From my own despair

And I think, devils be damned,

I'll make it through to another October somehow,

Just the way I always have

For twenty-five years and counting.

______