Before Waking in May

by Andrea Potos


There they are, as if on the stillest pond surface:
your crumpled griefs and nibbling fears,
scenes of the ways you have disappointed yourself,
friendship threads frayed or dissolved.
Yet still, you fold aside the blankets,
fluff your pillows and get up.
There’s no mistaking the resident cardinals
shouting at you through the window screen.
When you raise the shades,
you notice the emerged leaves of late May;
they have only deepened
their green after rain.


* * * * *

"Before Waking in May" is from Andrea Potos's collection Marrow of Summer (Kelsay Books).

Andrea Potos is the author of several poetry collections, most recently Her Joy Becomes (Fernwood Press), Marrow of Summer (Kelsay Books), Mothershell (Kelsay Books), A Stone to Carry Home (Salmon Poetry, Ireland) and Yaya's Cloth (Iris Press). Her poems can be found widely in print and online. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin.