An excuse for not posting.

I go through the same depression every spring. The bizarre winter we've had--60-degree days every couple of weeks; it's supposed to hit 70 today--has I think dredged up the Slough of Despond prematurely. I've never put it better than this:

Mayfly

In spring love seems a flypaper struggle
pinning me here, awkward and ticking:
like a pulse, like the jittery blackpowder
bundle in my chest. Blind ribs shield
the world from my heart and not
the other way around. On the trees
the youngest mocking greens uncurl
like breath but my throat is full
of words

after the equinox, it's raining--
the finches on the porch couple
in a scuffle of feathers--
I think of you and flutter my wings

tamped down by fear.
I understand the vernal suicide:
surrounded by resurrection but
mired in daily death, the contrast
too much to bear. All winter I longed
for light, but here it is, butter lemon
clover honey, and I am still the same
gaping mouth, the same hoarse cry.
Restillborn. Every morning
a life cut short.

[April 2007. "Mayfly" garnered an honorable mention in the 2008 issue of Mikrokosmos, Wichita State University's literary journal. I've never been happy with the last two lines: I feel like the poem ends three times, and none of the endings are satisfactory.]