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.