Linden Ontjes

Sentencing Spring

Recidivist season,
winter no apparent
deterrent. The minute
it’s sprung, it’s back
to its old tricks: birds
and bees, flowers, trees,
all the collywobbles
of romantic fevers, AM
radio, air
spiked with extra oxygen.

Spring, its verb
case sings
within its spelling.
We should impose
stiff mandatory sentences
on picnicking participles:
those Greek and Latin
sandwiches,
that tablecloth
spread on the ground.

April, you sting
and show no remorse.
The pathetic fallacy
of responsive weather
belongs to great fiction.
In this, my fortieth
season, you are cruel
as a game of word
association: hot/cold,
jail/free, sun/rain, you/me.

---

Linden Ontjes is a poet, visual artist, and teacher. She has published her poetry in Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Nimrod, the Seattle Review and other literary journals. She has received support from the Denali Foundation, Alaska State Council on the Arts, Foundation for Art Resources, and the King County Commission for Public Art.

 

home | issue 1 table of contents

Copyright © 2004-2007. This page was last updated March 10, 2007 .