before morning

a woman at night is like a man in the morning

except in all the ways she is not

for there are no means for the mounted streetlight to feel as warm

on skin

as the unrobed mid-day sun

nor can the sweet chirp of mothers to their young in the nest atop that big old birch

quite compare to the cricket’s night

interspersed by those phantom voices spun

by the hungry winds

gusty manhandling of autumn’s last branches

the moon for all her virtues

cannot give the time

no more than the sun can refrain himself from his merry traverse

on the trail of east to west

from dawn until dusk

when man’s wondrous telescope finds itself wrapped under a tarp

bearing the dirt of good fun

hoisted onto something so naturally manufactured for liberation

a Jeep, perhaps, or a pickup truck

 sans the sort of thing resembling a cover or door

or perhaps onto a back naked without the indentations of a bra

braced upon loud clunky feet that squelch down the mud path

they have never learned to tip-toe around uncles in living rooms

and meander to kitchens where mothers pour libations for thirsty throats or

to hush the patter of hurried footsteps

and avoid the big old lurker lying in the shadows

or to use inside voices when not inside

and listen for those foreign fingers hungry for tender necks

and to stay away from bad manners and shadows

no matter if the shadows transport  

to a poppy field

their pearly whiteness more spectacular night’s canvas and in it

where a patch of grass has

been worn down by calloused bare feet

in the same way man may fall to his knees

look at stars in skies

as the Romans did when Jupiter struck down light’s mandate from His celestial mantle so

too must woman fall

but to scatter rings of salt in the dark

knees resemble meniscus

at night man will delight in the moon

but know that she is nothing without sun’s light

woman could never think to look up

and arrive at this mournful realization

amongst the manic thrum of

howls erupting from the menagerie’s wolves menacing

the walk from car door to home door

uniformed silhouettes brandishing woven manacles

breeding fathers’ Mendelian gaze on adolescent breasts

dead men

and wandering fingers reeking of menthol and vapor

she hears them all in the menial silence of dawn’s darker precursor

senses heightened by menarche

and tragically

the scent of her own traitorous blood is what does her in before morning

Siri Palreddy

Siri Palreddy is a recent graduate from Amherst College, where she majored in English and Biology. Her senior year English thesis proposed three modes of melancholy traversing time and gender in the works of the modern diasporic South Asian-American poet, Reetika Vazirani, and the famed Mughal poet, Ghalib. She writes poetry but reads it more often.

Hailey Renee Brown

Hailey Renee Brown (Ren) is a professional illustrator born and raised in Mid-Michigan. A former field biologist, they moved across the country from Michigan to Pennsylvania, also moving from science to commercial art. A professionally trained artist, they attended the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in Dover, NJ, where they were selected the recipient of the 2017 Norman Maurer Memorial Award as well as the 2019 Joe Kubert Jumpstart Project. They have since worked for a variety of clients from Dark Horse Comics and Dynamite Entertainment to the Brink Literacy Project.