Apricity
melts the cold cave
of your mouth when you say it,
the stark sky made scarlet by a radiance
of cardinals. The sun undoes her golden strands,
sweeps the snow. Apricity,
like how our 5-year-old cups
the winter apple with both
hands, ((( ))) takes a bite,
calls the extraction a music note;
it fills back up with sun.
The sun sutures the raw cracked scraps
back to whole. Apricity
in the middle of a sword-shouldered crowd
with bill-collector eyes,
our baby squeals, jabs the keys of our lips
with her tiny finger to request more words
which she blesses with bird breath
and wildflowers.
And now, mi amor,
you shine by a frozen screen
a day so cold in Florida we woke
to the ground in frost’s
lace gown—or, almost.
But we imagined it.
Listen.
I burnt your grilled cheese
because I was scraping together this poem.
The house smelled like campfire for hours.
You slip away from your desk,
smile then eat. Pure apricity.
You wrap me in rays of acceptance
in a world that too often feels
like freeze-dried emotions.
Look up, my buttercups,
tonight is the cold moon.
The long night moon.
The last full sting of the year—
About the Author
Sara Ries Dziekonski (she/her) was named Runner-Up in the Press 53 Poetry Award for her manuscript, Today’s Specials, which was released in September of 2024 as a Tom Lombardo Poetry Selection. She is a Buffalo native and holds an MFA in poetry from Chatham University. Her first book, Come In, We’re Open, won the 2009 Stevens Poetry Manuscript Competition. Her chapbooks include Snow Angels on the Living Room Floor and Marrying Maracuyá, which won the Cathy Smith Bowers Chapbook Competition. Her poems have appeared in American Life in Poetry, Slipstream, Potomac Review, SWWIM Every Day, Connecticut River Review, and LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas, among others. Ries Dziekonski is the co-founder of Poetry Midwives Editing and Submission Services.