Molly Fisk: National Politics

Even though we watch every year

as the snow melts and runs along ditches

and gutters, finds the low places,

enters the creeks and the culverts, fanning

out wider to cover the gravel of rivers,

washing mud from the banks, testing

the bridges, splashing, tumbling granite,

even when crocuses push their green

crowns through the leaf mold, the succulent

not-quite-spring muck and then open,

flashing the earliest colors and mornings

inch their way upward by the half-minute

and evenings last just a notch longer,

barely perceptibly stretching the days

we still can’t believe it, we’re sure every winter

will hold us forever, that hoping is useless. It’s over.

© Molly Fisk, 2018