CHANGEABLE

This morning, icicles hung like daggers
from the eaves, the sky a bruised skin
over mountains. Tiny flakes of snow
sting. Maybe it’s wind, or the spin
of earth that brings the change—blue
beneath the gray like the swoops beneath
my eyes. By the time my snowshoes
are strapped on, old snow glints
under newly revealed sun.
I break through the fresh powder
along hidden trails ridged
on one side like scars, or spines.
So many words for pain and how it heals.

Subhaga Crystal Bacon is a Queer poet living in rural northcentral Washington on unceded Methow land. She is the author of four collections of poetry including Surrender of Water in Hidden Places, winner of the Red Flag Poetry Chapbook Prize forthcoming in the spring of 2023, and Transitory, recipient of the Isabella Gardner Award for Poetry, forthcoming in the fall of 2023 from BOA Editions.