VENTURE

Early spring, earth
a brown wound

too little green hopes
to heal, we venture

drinking sloppy coffee
from a single cup,

stopping on the interstate
to watch migrating hawks.

You swear you can’t
share a bed with anyone,

your sense of freedom
to sleep, wake, curl up

or sprawl disturbed
by that other rhythm—

but I wake each night
while you sleep,

to find us aligned:
travelling together

in the dark flight
toward morning.

April Ossmann is the author of Anxious Music (Four Way Books, 2007), and has published poetry in journals and anthologies including Harvard Review, Colorado Review, and From The Fishouse, and her awards include a 2013 Vermont Arts Council Creation Grant and a Prairie Schooner Readers' Choice Award. Formerly the executive director of Alice James Books (2000 – 2008), she owns a consulting business offering manuscript editing and publishing advice to poets. She is Editor-in-Residence on the faculty of the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing Program at Sierra Nevada College at Lake Tahoe.