she looks like october
and acts like june.
i look like june
and write like october.
a daughter’s backpack
already hanging
by the door.
your black sweaters
over my kitchen chairs
my floral plates
stacked beside them
everything
growing
out of order.
gardening supplies
stacked near the entrance
while christmas music
still plays overhead.
seed packets.
bags of soil.
shoppers pretending
the frost is finished.
you are standing
in the produce aisle
arguing that October
is a perfectly reasonable
name for a child.
strawberries
in december.
both of us acting
like this is normal.
Jenny Pallotti is a nurse and emerging writer based in California. She writes about the often-accepted absurdity of being alive inside modern ordinary life. Her work explores longing, embodiment, survival, and the ways people leave fingerprints on each other’s nervous systems.