RITUAL BEFORE SPRING
DELANEY OLMO
Winter has ended as remaining
icicles shatter from rain gutter
edges onto the cemented pavement,
while the floating citrine sun beams
from cotton-serrated cloud film.
All the oranges that fell from the trees,
I had hulled away frostbitten with all
the melting snow; immersing the corpses
back into the earth for next year
under the agate blue lace sky.
Within a clay hole I flay the
remaining skin and bury myself
beneath this orange tree.
Delaney R. Whitebird Olmo (Kashia Pomo, Yurok) is a poet living in Fresno, CA. She attends the Fresno State MFA Program. Her work can be found in Rockvale Review, Yellow Medicine Review, Visual Verse, and others.