Before Spring
       

It's still cool enough to let out a breath and see
it rise. Still gray enough for the city to drape
like an old woman. Miles away, a foal bel lows

in a fie ld by a misty overpass. She has stepped
on a rattler, its fangs already deep in her ankle.
Her eyes dilate, grow round as her new belly.

What the heart does next is cruel: how it lifts
in panic, the quick livening of the body before
it slackens. Her knees buckle, and grass swallows

her frame like lips on a flask. I thought it would be
nice to leave the city, to see springtime break across
the country. How unlike me—to confuse birth with

beauty: the flowers budding all red, the trees hard
in the sun, the slumped shape of the foal breathing
one, two, stop. Everything thaws in a slow hurt.

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Copyright © 2015 Megan Peak All rights reserved
from Ninth Letter
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission