Elegy for a Field of Pumpkins, November 3rd
by J.R. Allen
How slow the rot of neglect—
orange fading to palest off-white,
these frail bodies somehow facedown
in the muck of fall, all mud
and sunset. Corroded vines,
their collective veins, strewn
somberly along the sinew
of the field—imagine yourself
among them, how gritty the dirt
that grew rotund gourd from humble
seed—lain too gentle a word—littered
like road kill, the contorted shape
of death. Close your eyes, slumber
among the squash. Let your head
swell and run your fingers along grooves
left across your temple, rib-ridges frigid
in autumnal freeze. Cold always comes
too soon, you say, your blossom end
sunk in a half-frozen puddle—the wind
rising the only response. Each year,
this quiet exhumation of fall’s round
husks, plump and drooping—how sweet
decay smells, lingering in your nose
like curls of smoke. Wake to feel the wind
lapping at your head like waves, and find
a doe in the patch tonguing at the stems
and herding her fawn back to the treeline.
J.R. Allen recently moved to southwestern Ohio to pursue an MFA at Miami University, where he serves as a teaching assistant. He wishes it was always autumn, mostly because of his love of sweaters. He is a fiction editor for Great Lakes Review, and his work is featured or forthcoming in Dunes Review, Gyroscope Review, and Flashglass.
