by Lorrie Ness
A bare bulb sprays
the root cellar’s bulging walls,
so infernally bright that I squint
against its glare, then squint again
at its dimness.
Where does the light go,
in the space of eight-foot square?
It’s the math mama used to pickle
summer into jars. Three months
condensed to quarts.
This is the only place
where time is measured in volume,
where months are poured into green glass.
Every harvest balancing
gluttony & cure.
Mama lugged preserves
downstairs, listening to the music
of brackets creaking & shelves bowing,
gambling with the weight
of just one more.
What geometry squeezes
light into a single bulb, condenses
a season into cells? What math allows
a lifetime to burn down
to a quart of ash?
Lorrie Ness is a writer in Northern Virginia. She has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net Prizes. Her works appear in numerous journals including: Palette Poetry, Trampset, PoetryONL, The Rappahannock Review, The Inflectionist Review and Sky Island Journal. She is the author of two collections: Heritage & Other Pseudonyms and Anatomy of a Wound, which were published by Flowstone Press.
January House Literary Journal 
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