Winter Thaw

Abstract

Winter Thaw Cori Martin (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Pray to Heaven. © Walter Sanchez [End Page 106] The garden gate creaks on spring hinges, swingingopen slowly. Snow-blown just last week,the yard's streaked with green and scattered violets.From under-earth the velvet moles emerge,hiding blind eyes from daylight, dazzled. Neatsquirrels—all sleek energy unbounded now—race, chase birds fluttering on Easter wings.Blood in creatures stirs; trees' sap seeps freely.Erupting bulbs cast off death's clasp, blast throughtheir burial ground, black caskets cracked. So letthe disused spirit too be born anew,the closed soul unfold, as when (shut againstbleak seasons) a slowly opening crocus creaks. [End Page 107] Cori Martin Cori Martin, a native of Toronto, is a poet and librettist, playwright, and editor who has also worked as a journalist, musician, and in musical artists' management in Toronto, New York City, New Haven, CT, and Washington DC, among other locations. She was a Lecturer in English at The Ohio State University from 2001 to 2014. In 2015 she won both first and second prize in The New Quarterly Occasional Verse Competition (Canada). Cori lives in Columbus, Ohio with her husband, Renaissance scholar Hannibal Hamlin. corimartin.323@gmail.com. Copyright © 2017 Johns Hopkins University Press