Late November

Jesse Doiron

April 24, 2022

“What month we in?” he asked,

as if to say he’d been asleep

so long as to forget.

“It’s late November, Daddy,

well into cold, you know.

There’s frost on every pane.”

“Well, I can see I cannot see,”

he answered me and smiled.

“It’s ice.  It’s ice on all the glass.”

“I’ll do the windows if you like,”

and rose to go outside,

prepared to clear the view.

“No, no. That’s how it is.

These days. Not here. Not there. 

Somewhere – between.”

“The sky is very blue,” I said,

and the neighbors still have snow

– north side of their trees.”

“From yesterday?” he asked,

“The snow, I mean. The snow?

Is it old snow on the trees?”

“Well, a week or so,

and hardly any dropped away.

Still there – north-side shade.”

“That long.  That long –

What month we in?” he asked again.

And once again we then began.

“It’s late November – Daddy.”

Jesse Doiron spent 13 years overseas in countries where he often felt as if he were a “thing” that had human qualities but couldn’t communicate them. He teaches college, now, to people a third his age. He still feels, often, as if he is a “thing” that has human qualities but can’t communicate them.