NovaWinter, and every tree has lost its head. Grey-silver birds bicker on a stricken twig— they fly up and cathedral vacant space, all subterfuge and sunlight, alchemical as distance: swerve and jig (amid the lace of a white new gown) before relighting on a swaying branch. The ice sharpens into teeth; hangs thinner from the eaves. The bare limbs dance. And evening laces up. You waste away. Each day, a breath-mark on a mirror. Will Cordeiro received his MFA and Ph.D. from Cornell University. His work appears or is forthcoming in Copper Nickel, Cortland Review, Crab Orchard Review, CutBank Online, Drunken Boat, Fourteen Hills, Phoebe, and elsewhere. He is grateful for residencies from ART 342, Blue Mountain Center, Ora Lerman Trust, Petrified Forest National Park, and Risley AIR at Cornell University. He lives in Flagstaff, Arizona, where he is a faculty member in the Honors Program at Northern Arizona University. |