Jory Mickelson

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

divider

 


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.