WANTON BOUNTY
by Will Cordeiro
Leaf-fiddle in the riddled
fields—back-
water maugered into rippled mulch. Fleet
day fades fast: first
graupel bristles after lashing gusts
& smalt-wrought ice
grimes guff
upon the lake’s trapdoor.
Gush goozles, grizzles. A gritty mizzle
freezes into pulp. In spots
by spurts, a sun-gashed, stain-gouged
un-
gainly order thickens.
At last, all this
litter
quickens the tawdry snow-mound’s
slurried taupe. Debouch
of everything lush spring once augured.
Winter’s boundary:
slick-black boot tracks stuck with soot. Against
each driven center, flash-
points thrash. A firn-struck
shuck of ruction forms like spackled
crystals, dappled
scraps. Soft sap-
slack sop
of mist & slop
adown wind’s thrapple sparkles; poudrin
freckles; powder fractals. Slush
rushes off. Each
weathervane all widdershins,
the fickle light-
shot shadows craze & scriven.
Will Cordeiro has work published or forthcoming in 32 Poems, AGNI, Bennington Review, Pleiades, and The Threepenny Review. Will won the 2019 Able Muse Book Award for Trap Street. Will is also coauthor of Experimental Writing: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury, 2024). Will coedits Eggtooth Editions and lives in Guadalajara, Mexico.