April hides in a wing
where a duck tucks his green head,
mourning’s night long
still and you haven’t felt
yet what sun can conjure,
the stars daffodils make—
tin bucket blooms
a constellation
while petal snow
drifts
from ornamental plums
before it rains.
How to carry on
through early squalls, the stiff
damp. Too much, crying
washes you away.
But here is your spring
a bulb,
an egg—days
underground, closer.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 16, Issue 2.
Joannie Stangeland’s most recent book is Into the Rumored Spring from Ravenna Press. She’s also the author of two chapbooks, and her poems have appeared in Superstition Review, Tulane Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and other journals and anthologies. Joannie helps edit The Smoking Poet and Cascadia Review.
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