​M.A. Scott
​

Winter Aubade with Headless Saint Francis and a Line by Thakur
Or no, not winter, not yet. The last days of lengthening dark fall like a spell.  Squirrels that devoured a jack-o-lantern then an acorn squash, splash and drink from a shallow melamine bowl. Birds on the rim, too quick to identify. One year since we lost Booboo another year about to turn. I don’t hate people but the party was too loud
 
and it is the time of year where melancholy shows up, a surprise guest you didn’t get a gift for. Yesterday, a friend underwent a deep excision on his scalp, tomorrow he will encourage us to laugh at his bandages. We don’t know it yet, but the day after, we will hear another of our coworkers has died. The year after grandmother’s death
 
on Boxing Day, mother set out the jam-filled cookies (we all thought no one had the recipe). When asked, she confessed Nana had made these the year before and she saved them in the freezer. We all shrank from the ghost cookies even though we wanted to devour them. And now it is December 17th, twenty-six years since,
in pre-dawn pre-op,
 
the surgeon marked an X on my right breast with a Sharpie. A female cardinal perches on the rim of the bowl, under Saint Francis’ mossy hands; the sky is flushed with the dawn and my path lies beautiful. It is good be the one who comes to mind when someone finds a headless statue, good to wake to find it planted in your garden. It is good to have friends that bring you broken things.
 
things held in the palm
a small clot of mercury tilts along life’s creases || stems of wildflowers sweat-wilt before they get home to water || so many hands  ||  too few hands || smooth black tourmaline I hold in meditation || bioluminescent sea water reflecting a puddle of meteor showers || my cat’s skull as she softens from sedation to gone || clover pulled up by fistfuls on the ground with a friend as we skirt a difficult conversation || my nails digging arcs into my skin encouraging the tourniquet to raise blood at arm’s crook || never a gun || maybe a gun || anything cradled before throwing || a small plastic baby, washed ashore in tangled strands of seaweed, talisman of the child I chose not to carry to birth || pleasure, mine || pleasure, not mine || rain || more rain, which I drink & drink as if the sky were my mother || it is enough || it is never enough
 
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M.A. Scott is the author of the chapbook Hunger, little sister (Ghost City Press, 2024). Her work has recently appeared in Stonecoast Review, Cease, Cows, The Night Heron Barks, and DMQ Review. M.A. grew up in Rhode Island, and currently lives in New York’s Hudson Valley.