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Vermicule

BY MICHAL LEIBOWITZ

 

Stanford University, ’19
2016 Adroit Prize for Poetry: Editors’ List

Winter comes in rust and oranges.
There are fewer calves, more bulls,

and I am told it is December. Snow
a static of the east. This is the year

I will become. Skin rounding,
resolving. Riding the sway of my

bones. The winter sun is sovereign
here—the moon, a gaunt glory.

Her sickled white, a variation on
swell. This is the year the fox

stops coming round, and the
crocuses embrace acreage of sky.

They bloom, like a brag. I keep
the gloves in the closet beneath

all the other things I don’t need
here. My body budding fish eggs.

Beginnings. A psalm. I am
learning what it’s like to birth

something to fruition. A careful
warming, and then a crack.

Michal Leibowitz as born and raised in White Plains, NY. After high school, she spent a year in Israel where she studied, worked, and collected stories. Michal’s poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Boxcar Poetry Review, Spry Literary Journal, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and a Gigantic Sequins blog feature. Michal is a freshman at Stanford University.