in time the snow is gone
sometimes the maple, sometimes
the water birches
a field of green
harebell and tulips too
the brown hare turning
away from the radish greens
something like the dark
left beneath the bank of spruce
the morning light coming
through the window
mixed with rain
she said the kitchen is clean
but could use a sprucing
needle-scent, sap, newly
painted trim
the shape of planks
outlined, newspaper laid
to catch paint
something pink obscuring
the text, in time
the snow is gone & the grass
Jory Mickelson is a queer writer whose work has appeared in The Rumpus, Ninth Letter, Vinyl Poetry, The Collagist, The Los Angeles Review, and other journals in the United States, Canada, and the UK. He is the recipient of an Academy of American Poet’s Prize and a Lambda Literary Fellow in Poetry. The author of three chapbooks, his most recent is Self-Portrait with Men in Cars, published in 2018.