Autumn’s Vacuum by Ashley Bullen-Cutting

                      ​ Ross Griff CC



Autumn’s Vacuum

Distress. Chased down with ambivalence. Listen to Autumn’s night vacuum,
bat-streaked but silent. Above, a hideaway moon turns aside. The bag is heavy.
Laden with stolen diachrony. Shoulder it slow. Trees huddle close. In on it, or
within on it. A wood wide web. Catching breakaway sounds. How far in is
enough? Seclusion and obfuscation are relative. The world is heavy with
contradictions. A firefly careers close, a will-o'-wisp wish to be blown on the
wind. Brightness suddenly feels criminal; openness diametric to intention. If a bag
is left in the woods with nobody around to see it, is it, indeed, still a bag? Inside?
​Shh. You’ll wake it. Assurance is a terrible bedfellow.

​

Ashley Bullen-Cutting is a writing human from the UK (please do not remind him of this fact). His poetry and prose has featured in over a dozen journals, and sometimes it gets read. He is currently the fiction editor at Barren Magazine. @abullencutting

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