Blue blood

belongs only to those with no need for veins, like a wanderlust that starts where the highway ends.

The way my skin cracks in winter

maybe I’ll molt.

The forests of my earliest childhood

are evergreen.

mountaintop pond

the blind dog lapping
at her reflection

ice rings

as if some logger felled a tree of ice

stripped of all focus

I don’t notice the hunter standing in a tree

ephemeral pond

the trees wear icy collars at the high-water mark

skunk cabbage

each avoiding the others’ hot, foul breath

wood frog egg-mass

anchored to a projecting twig a gleaming ring

after months of snow

the rust on the drainage grate is in full spring bloom

vernal pool

leafy muck visible through each reflected trunk

way out on the ice

some small dead thing with its attendant crow