Spring Arrives Late to Salt Lake City

Jacqueline Osherow

Why so hesitant, spring? What’s the problem?
I’ve never known you quite this shy.
You’re like a new girl in junior high,
avoiding the hallways, the lunch room,
strangely oblivious of your own beauty
or perhaps afraid of it, keeping it hidden.
But what’s happening? All of a sudden
you’re trying prom dresses on all over the city,
absurdly poufy pinks, whites, purple-reds,
yards and yards of crinoline beneath each skirt.
And now you’re tearing them up! Exquisite shreds
cover streets, cars, sidewalks, rooftops, grass. . . .
You’re back to all or nothing, spring. I’m envious.
I aimed to be like that, but I lost heart.

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Jacqueline Osherow is the author of seven collections of poetry, including most recently Ultimatum from Paradise (LSU Press, 2014). Her new collection, My Lookalike at the Krishna Temple, is forthcoming from LSU Press in the spring of 2019. She’s received grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and the Witter Bynner Prize from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. She’s Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Utah and currently directing the Creative Writing Program.

Able Muse

Winter 2017

San Jose, California

Editor: Alexander Pepple

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