Judith Vollmer is the author of five books of poetry, including, most recently, The Water Books (Autumn House Press, 2012). Previous collections have been awarded the Brittingham, the Cleveland State, and the Center for Book Arts publication prizes; she also is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Vollmer lives in Pittsburgh and teaches at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg and the Drew University MFA Program in Poetry & Poetry in Translation.---------
Children of October
Those of us born in July, voluptuous & moody
frost the sun with our loneliness.
Under hottest skies we sing to the hidden moon.
Those born in July are children of October
carrying bushels of peaches
home, never too early to stock up, take
home wherever we go, buoyant as saltwater
showing off our rare equilibrium, conceived in October
when two fall to the floor, laughing
in search of a lost earring.
Those of us born in July
carry our opposite season
like the willow does. She lets her long
green hair down, turning her flexible head
down to brush the weeds & clasp
tufts of rabbit fur into her slender olivine leaves,
dressing herself for the cold, always
last to drop her leaves,
first to show her bittersoft mud-yellow tongues.