Connie Soper

Postcard from March

I write to you amidst a great thaw—not quite
the advent of spring, not yet quitting winter.
Some mornings
I am a thought barely there,
an island hovering in the mist, a mirage
you can’t reach. This is what I’m telling you:
it’s as if the ground beneath your feet
is a hardpan floor, and hours later,
all fecund with a bitter pungency.
You can’t straddle that place forever, where dawn
is but a stutter step, a hesitation waiting
to be unplugged. The whole world is a door ajar.
Icicles melting. Crocus stuck between seasons.
You stand at that threshold, in the mud
of your own limbo. Midway between here
and the frontier ahead.
Go ahead, take the first step.
It won’t come to you.

Connie Soper lives and writes in Portland, Oregon. She often finds inspiration while hiking or beachcombing. Her poems have received recognition from the Oregon Poetry Association, Calyx, and the Neahkahnie Poetry Prize. Her first full-length book of poetry, A Story Interrupted, published by Airlie Press in 2022, celebrates walking and witnessing her native terrain.