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.