August is All You’re Allowed

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It’s a log cabin I hole myself
up in Thoreau-style, my only neighbors
the pines, cedars, the black walnuts
littering the floor with their dense body
musty, bittersweet, thick
NPR calls it the un-walnut and
the black birds agree, knocking
the fat fruit from the canopy
embodying how thump is sounded out
by the mouth, tha-ump, tha-ump
it sinks through
the air like the winged
seed of a maple – samaras
they’re called, the word a gob of honey
slinking down the lip
of a mug, samaras, samaras, they evolved
to fly, to carry their seeds to sunnier more
hospitable places, to keep tucked in, tucked
away, tucked beneath the brush
where the white dotted fawns
lay spindle under spindle leg, quiet and
waiting. When you spot them, you stop.
You hold your breath.
You move on.



CJ is a poet and writer living in Nashville, Tennessee with a degree in English and a double minor in creative writing and history. She’s had work published in Aurora: the Allegory Ridge Poetry Anthology, Sinew: Poetry in the Brew’s Poetry Anthology, and the Belmont Literary Journal. And when she’s not writing about women’s lives or taking moody walks in the cold, she’s working with kids as a counselor and writing instructor.

NOVUS Literary and
Arts Journal
Lebanon, TN