End of April: PHILLIS LEVIN
Under a cherry tree
I found a robin’s egg,
broken, but not shattered.
I had been thinking of you,
and was kneeling in the grass
among fallen blossoms
When I saw it : a blue scrap
a delicate toy, as light
as confetti
It didn’t seem real,
but nature will do such things
from time to time.
I looked inside:
it was glistening, hollow,
a perfect shell
except for the missing crown,
which made it possible
to look inside.
What had been there
is gone now
and lives in my heart
where, periodically,
it opens up its wings,
tearing me apart.
Phillis Levin (1954- ) is the author of four poetry collections, including May Day (Penguin, 2008). She also served as editor for The Penguin Book of the Sonnet (2001) and teaches at Hofstra University.
End of April, written in 1996, is from Phillis Levin’s poetry collection The Afterimage, 1996, Copper Beech Press, Providence, Rhode Island.
Photographer: Martina Nicolls
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