When old leaves broke from branches, buds fit
tight to each notch, shining and dark, to fend
off withering blasts of winter – anger lit
my words that froze, metallic sun sent
doubt doubling back on me like smoke, past
the last marauder, the tumbling wake
of near despair. Now, wonder opens, last
river ice dismembering. Danger breaks
through, currycombs the redgrass foal – the shad
fry slip off spawned. The sky expects the pond,
slides in, claims it. Frogs edge the shore, add
insistent rasp – footprint of ground phlox, flood.
April rises wild. Such risk in giving
bares my panicked heart, the lance of living.
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Poems