April
by Marjorie Tesser
I am chill drizzle
into spongy ground,
the picnic table
upended in
last week’s storm,
still not set right.
I’m the car
that waits behind
the school bus
blinking red,
the full recycle
bins at the curb,
that black bird
on the wire
calling, calling,
to the sky’s
blank slate.
I’m below,
a hungry wet cat,
looking up.
I’m the lines
that stretch from
pole to pole,
the lines I thought
but didn’t write.
Racing, but I
halt at amber.
I’m half-starts
and short stops—
ancient,
emerging ever,
a hard nub of bud
at the end of
a bare branch.
I’m a mailbox
full of flyers,
the thick web over
the front window
shining with droplets,
& the sweet shock
of a daffodil,
the season’s first
from a patch planted
decades ago,
gold as a hope.
This poem was originally published in a privately-printed tribute to Marie Ponsot, "Still Against War IX."
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