JUNE, MAYVILLE

Burst blackgum drupes drip stickier than gumdrops
down their moss-furred trunks. Long afternoons
lick up the dew then vanish into mist—

soft after-rain across the quiet valley.
A salvage yard of clouds stalls overhead,
fresh puddles riddled with a rippled view

of seasons in their slow unravelling.
Barn swallows glide above their silhouettes
while sundown teases me with crimson luster

folding up the hillocks spilling buttercups,
far crowds of clover, mint a trifle spoilt,
and pockets of thick undeciphered weeds  

where fat bees comet through a velvet darkness.  
I scratch the shoulder of a two-year colt
who has a small white star between his eyes.  

Will Cordeiro has work appearing or forthcoming in Agni, Best New Poets, Cimarron Review, The Cincinnati Review, Copper Nickel, DIAGRAM, Palette Poetry, Poet Lore, Poetry Northwest, Salamander, Sycamore Review, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, The Threepenny Review, and elsewhere. Will’s collection Trap Street won the 2019 Able Muse Book Award. Will co-edits the small press Eggtooth Editions and is grateful for a grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts. Will received his MFA and Ph.D. from Cornell University. Currently, Will lives in Guadalajara, Mexico.