A Fall Song (poem)

A Fall Song

Crown the lost skill with a swatch

Of summer’s frost-killed borning

Nigh the late season skewer in

Hanging moss in diadem

Like unpaid tax this sorrowing

For loyalty’s contagion

Takes thirty days a week per year

For charity knit things for sale

Embattled she has things to fool

Her breath to try for the first time

Catch hold of this and make it fast

The fellmonger will spring his traps

Hammer a parchment where he weaves

In hanks of wild dogs’ brindling

His bulletins to fallen men

Bald runes in knotted accents

Scats and ashes, withered leaves

Boil in rendered fat and lye

Soap for greasing palms and minds

Thick with lard and seeking alms

Filamentous threads attach

Where evil work waits to be done

A Fall Song

World On

Her Bid for Freedom

(2016, Stephanie Foster)