People call October beautiful.
They speak of amber leaves,
cold mornings,
pumpkins glowing
on crooked front steps.
They love the way
the trees surrender
their colours
before winter takes them.
I see it too.
The gold.
The rust.
The little deaths
falling quietly
into the grass.
But October
has always known
how to hurt me.
It comes dressed
in all the colours
of something beautiful,
then presses its fingers
into a wound
that has never
quite closed.
Every year,
the air changes.
And my body knows
before I look
at the calendar.
You are coming,
my sweet girl.
Your birthday.
Your memory.
That impossible day
when I learned
a mother’s heart
can break
and somehow
keep beating.
Still,
I cannot hate October.
It gave me you.
And for three and a half hours,
autumn was not
a season of dying.
It was the season
my daughter
was born.
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