‘April to May’ by Joyce E. Peseroff

On the Instagram feed of The Paris Review, I saw this extract of Joyce E. Peseroff’s poem, ‘April to May’. It moved me very much. Even though here in the Southern Hemisphere we’re moving into rather than out of winter, it’s timely, according to the calendar if not the seasons, to reproduce it. I hope you enjoy it, too.

It is cold enough for rain

to coagulate & fall in heavy drops.

Tonight a skin of ice will grow

over the bones of the smallest bush,

making it droop like the wrist

of someone carrying a heavy suitcase. This moving on,

from season to season, is exhausting

& violent, the break from the Berlin Wall

of winter especially. Like a frostbitten

hand coming to life, I colour

first with warmth,

then with pain.