December falls away, with fake stars

and champagne, fades to this grey

of the two-faced month

promising fresh starts

delivering dull ice and duller sky

and when will it end.

January, I sip my tea

and read my books,

and the cat enjoys the pale sun on the sidewalk.

February gestates

like a new lamb like a birdsong

like the Brigid flame in oakwood.

When morning comes

a yellow light slants in on satin toes

as my maple gathers sap, puts out her scarlet buds,

hallucinates

a spring of golden green.

Red-winged blackbirds.

I will wait for that first scrap of new moon,

I tell myself: then

I will rise up, bare-headed

with sun in my eyes and bird nests in my hair,

summon starlings and crows

and bleed fire.

Wren Donovan (she/her) lives in Tennessee. Her poetry appears in Orange Blossom Review (where it was nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net), Poetry South, Susurrus, Rust + Moth, The Shore, Cumberland River Review, and elsewhere including her personal website. Wren studied at Millsaps College, UNC-Chapel Hill, and University of Southern Mississippi. Find her on Bluesky.