The last snow mantle
drapes your shoulders,
covers your dark readiness.

Secretly,
as I drive past along
my corridor of labor,
I love you.

Secretly,
white-laced,
wet and open.

You are the field
I will lie down in, to wait.
Crops will grow up around me.
They will scrape you bare again,
leave you bleeding, confused,
your ditches still unmown,

and there I will be.

—

Will Reger is a founding member of the CU (Champaign-Urbana) Poetry Group (cupoetry.com), has a Ph.D. from UIUC, teaches at Illinois State University in Normal, and has published most recently with Front Porch Review, Chiron Review, and the Paterson Literary Review. His first chapbook is Cruel with Eagles. He is found at https://twitter.com/wmreger — or wandering in the woods playing his flute.