The sky is sick and coated like a tongue,

white/green/blue,

and the pelting comes, small 

knocks on a great wood door.

They drop one after the other, pattering steps on the stairs

Oh, Hail, father knew, and the groundhog who

stumbled out of the sheets with dry breath and long toenails

and another tail connected to his own.

Out of the swampy things comes yellow

around now, forsythia

blooms from the gray in the driveway

leafless and early, shivering in the still 

winter with only anticipation:

a turning stomach and popped vein 

    in the wrist.

And a gnat floats in the cup of hot tea

like a pirouetter of sorts

with broad strokes

limbs   r e a c h i n g,   an almost 

snow angel.

It waits for the audience, for the recital,

like a snowglobe 

in the silence of a nubby hand 

the last few specks of white finding their home

      back down 

      in the burrow.

As the plastic hail rains down, 

the child is glossy-eyed as the tongue,

mouth open, holding 

for the frozen star to make its swift landing.

The knocks ascend too, like the child swatting the mother from sleep

the stirring, pot sprinkled with salt that looks a lot like hail

and the world becomes alive – streets laden

salted and still,

the groundhog knows 

to just take a stroll

and let the ice tap him awake

as after all, he’s not the one 

made of glass,

and the gnat must have been ready 

      for a swim.

Rayna Moxley (she/her) is a College second-year from Maryland. She hopes to pursue Creative Writing and enjoys writing poetry about the passage of time, family, and mythology.