Equinoctial

by Jennifer Brown

Rémi Walle

What’s hard about spring is all the light —  down-pouring thin at first, then full-flowing, impatient for sap, for green, for pollen to tumble yellow confetti along its bright chutes that slice between bare branches, this light almost solid, this light setting the air to dance the sevenveils, to disrobe, leaving the scarves where they fall.

What’s hard about spring is all the yearning —  the crisp unfolding buds, leaves palely meeting the dew that rises to vapor without freezing all the young life. Everything starving. Skinny, driven to eat by tooth, by chloroplast, by root or membrane, driven to leave the burrow, the house, the packed & thawing soil, breaking shells, braving the open air with soft down and fur and skin.

What’s hard about spring is overflowing, being bare & alive & here, now, openmouthed & rapt, not sleeping under wraps nor saying, wait.

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Jennifer Brown (she/her) lives with her partner and a funny-looking dog in Montpelier, VT, having recently left the too-hot south behind for good. She has taught creative writing and literature in high schools, colleges, summer programs, and festivals and has held residencies at the Weymouth Center for the Arts and the Vermont Studio Center. Her work has appeared in Copper Nickel, Orison Anthology, Cimarron Review, Zone 3, Twyckenham Notes, and Cincinnati Review. Her first poetry collection, Natural Violence, was published by Brick Road Poetry Press in 2022.