Unspring

Second Place, Jane Greer Memorial Poetry Contest 2026

Someone tell the trees: enough’s enough.

The raw young leaves of March insult the air

with shocks of green impudent as prayer,

and I am made of fragile, greedy stuff

that rhymes with Spring, and gets ideas from sap

zooming up trunks. Someone make it stop.

Reverse the flow of sap. Force sugars back

beneath the dirt. Unspring the golden quick

of buttercups, and suck their buoyant heads

into honest earth, respectable decay.

Return to winter’s Hellenistic gray

and give us peace from greens and golds and reds.

Unspeak this clamor, cut out vernal tongues.

Make Versailles of silence in our lungs.