Women's History Month: Lisa Marguerite Mora's "End of December"

End of December  

End of December. Light narrowed to a sliver of silver, cold as an antique

spoon. I wanted to sit in that cold, let it seep into the metal in my blood

and become one with Winter. Sat in the middle of the living room floor,

all the chores done, all the business attended to, everything clean and

dusted and wiped, and the cold wound itself through me. Balm of stillness.

I wanted to freeze, become a snowflake, my own little personal

pattern never to be repeated. Wanted to succumb to frozen air, so long in its

arrival to this desert state, this ocean mild paradise, its relentless merciless

blue skies. I wanted. To stop. Go back to the source. Molecules arrested

in their motion, pristine hand of a Winter god arrested on me. Regenerate,

and be not myself.  And so I sat on the soft carpet, wondered if this was

right to allow myself to become so very cold, yet I thirsted for it and

the darkness, moisture of an uncommon rain, as dusk dropped down

its granular veil.

© 2019 Lisa Marguerite Mora

photo by Alexis Rhone Fancher

Lisa Marguerite Mora has won prizes for poetry and fiction. Offering literary services since 2002, she also conducts workshops. Publications include Rattle, Literary Mama, Public Poetry Series, California Quarterly, Cultural Weekly, Rebelle Society, The Urban Howl, Serving House Journal, a Blue Mountain Arts Poetry Prize. In 2017, she placed first in a Micro Fiction Contest for Dandelion Press, and 14th and 26th Moon Prize for Writing in a Woman’s Voice in 2017 and 2018. Shopping around a first novel, she has caught the attention of top agents. You can find her at BarringtonEditorial.com or LisaMargueriteMora.com