Robbie Gamble

November

Last weekend, the hillsides hunkered down
sloughing fiery colorways
for a camouflage quilt of rust
and olive drab. Soon comes the dispatch

for clocks to fall back, a twist
of mechanical grief. Darkness pays a call
across the porch midafternoon. Soon we celebrate
some long-gone armistice, a war

to end all wars. Charge the woodstove, draw
the insulated blinds. Before we foxhole
beneath the bedclothes, promise me
entropy will one day turn its shell-shocked corner.

Serve me a bowl of cold, cold comfort
in this most vanilla of seasons.

Robbie Gamble (he/him) is the author of A Can of Pinto Beans (Lily Poetry Review Press, 2022). His poems have appeared in Cagibi, DIALOGIST, Post Road, Salamander, and The Sun. He divides his time between Boston and Vermont.