Michael Quattrone

Spring Regret

April fourth, I am a field turning
itself over. The year inside me, winter
sediment, and dormant seed unsettle.
My green earth body—arcing, prone—
lies open to the straight plow of a lover’s blade,
unzipping what’s been closed since summer
in furrow upon furrow of dark mineral soil,
all that seethes beneath the surface, shown.

Tractor of grief, how you complicate desire.
It takes a thing as heavy as you to move
the weight of something like creation—
for something like creation. I am sorry
for the human damage done by wanting
what cannot be taken, only buried, only grown.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Michael Quattrone is the author of Rhinoceroses (New School Chapbook Award, 2006) and the song cycle, One River (Wolfe Island Records, 2018). His work has been collected in The Best American Erotic Poems (Scribner, 2008) and The Incredible Sestina Anthology (Write Bloody, 2013). Recent poems appear in Poets Reading the News, The Westchester Review and The Night Heron Barks. Michael curated the KGB Poetry Series with Laura Cronk and Megin Jimenez from 2007 to 2011. He lives in Tarrytown, New York.