Michelle Boisseau is a Professor of English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Her books of poetry include: No Private Life (Vanderbilt, 1990), Understory (Northeastern University, 1996), Trembling Air (Arkansas, 2003), A Sunday in God-Years (Arkansas, 2009) and the forthcoming Among the Gorgons. Her work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Yale Review and Ploughshares. In 2010 she received an NEA Fellowship in Poetry and in 2015 was awarded the Tampa Prize.
The little house climbs from winter afraid
of its own weakness. The door, the cedar shakes.
The knot of leaves in the porch corner drowses
in the sunlight. The frost sizzles and rises.
It’s hard to find a word, a sentence, a handle
for the color of the dead grass. Gradually
in spasms of thaw, the grade of the continent
takes the snow and other omens. Squirrel nests
hang like brains in the trees, rocking, rocking.
Behind the house, daffodils. Right and reckless.
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