(When it’s dark) four
months and March
alights, awaited
(the envoy
brightens, comes)
in its kumquat
(of sun, its skin—
sweet, taut) yet the
caustic’s caught
within, a sadness in
reverse (as citrus
it grows) the way
we dress, rehearse,
array our
(incandescent)
faces, mostly,
keeping close, our
puckered-down
defeats—still
yearn past (bitter-
sweet. I cannot
find) a rind for
shielding (sorrow) so
retreat, draw
blinds completely
(with the landing
of the light. How
solar) is the black.
How polar (is the cap
that) circles
round the mind,
(tilts sun) to burn (to
buoyed ice) then—
to blind
Cate Lycurgus received her MFA from Indiana University in Bloomington, where she served as poetry editor for Indiana Review. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Crazyhorse, The Iowa Review, Best New Poets 2012, and elsewhere.