wildscape. literary journal

September First but Not Perfectly
by Eleanore Tisch

Last year’s apples and toil, March snow, 
new sun, porch swing, sweet tea, leaf rot
at the bottom. I awake an insurrection
& underneath a warning gumdrop stuck
to pillow, expired top sheet shelf-life,
I drink greedily from the cool side of
my chambers. I resurrect a dream 
 brought along to offer the autumn-spring axis
off kilter or on again or

of The Deep by chance. I think often

of keeping my bed-being but it’s just me 
running cars off cliffs and returning sideways
through the future, with gumption. What 
month is this? Mumble to my cluttered
kitchen, pocket watch molting. Time 
tumble-weeding along an inexact equinox,
going somewhere soon. Spontaneous eclipse. 
Rarely in a lifetime does one fully get 
to fuck 
            off 
                kilter or on again or 

in a field of their own fallow. I keep often

the thinking of an instruction manual,
a how-to-gamble in the face of certain 
crapshoot. It could go either way, this
season, this sleep, this tea-drunk swung 
and brung along because I have nothing 
else to offer. It is not quite garbage, this refuse
of my slumber. But it does belong to heaping. 
I shrug. Smirk. I awake a bet-you-all-my-debt 
that it won’t get any better

but it could.

about the author // Eleanore Tisch

Eleanore Tisch (she/her) is a writer, educator, and artist originally from Chicago. She holds a B.A. in Writing and Literature from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University, an M.A. in Education Foundations, Policy, and Practice from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a newly-minted MFA in Creative Writing and Environment from Iowa State University. You can find more of her published work, or get in touch, at eleanoretisch.com.

Instagram: @eleanoreality
Website: eleanoretisch.com