The Coming of September’s Cool

by Jessica Femiani

September refreshes as I open the back door, toss a few tomato tins into the bin.

September’s cool is consolation.

An awakening, a tiny trickle of truth, like the crisp autumns somersaulting the

sidewalk’s upward slope just outside my bedroom window.

An awakening, a glimpse of beauty, like the rustle of the baby birch tree leaves in

the wooded area a few feet from my old apartment in Johnson City.

An awakening, a delicate wind chime, a sprinkling of fairy dust.

Especially now that I know you’re really gone, across the country, you are, in

Reno, Nevada.

Especially now, because I can see you gloating, even though I know you don’t

know how you did it.

Especially now, having finally pulled it off, I see you riding out this post-doc for

all its worth.

I can’t help but wonder if this sinking of me into you was because of the liquid

black pools of your eyes, the big mouth of your smile.

I can’t help but know that it doesn’t matter, that I must be stopping the looking,

the remembering.

September is the closing of all my apartment windows.

September is the wanting to keep this one cracked for as long as I can.

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Jessica Femiani’s poems and essays have been published in the Paterson Literary Review, Labor: Studies in Working-Class History, #MeToo, Anch’io, Harpur Palate, Mom Egg Review, and Italian American Review. Finishing Line Press released her chapbook, The American Gun (2024). She lives in Binghamton, New York, and is an adjunct lecturer at SUNY Oneonta, teaching composition and creative writing.