Susanna Lang

The cold shouldn’t have taken me by surprise, but I’m not ready. Can’t find my mittens, my wool socks have last winter’s holes. Roses and snapdragons freeze to their stems, still in their summer colors. Gingkos drop their yellow leaves.

I hear the cries before I see the swirling V’s—

                       hundreds of wide-winged
                       birds, high in the sky, calling
                       each other’s forgotten names

The sandhill cranes, leaving late. All at once, like the gingkos. An old man stops on the Irving Park bridge, head tipped back. No one else looks up.

At the confluence, the old heron stands unmoving on his stone. I didn’t see him last winter, though I came every week to dip a vial in the river, measure the concentration of road salt. I thought he might have died after his mate did, or joined a migrating flock. But if he’s still here now, cold as it is, he will not leave this year.

                       So still, not even
                       searching for fish—his gray coat
                       fades into the trees

Susanna Lang’s chapbook, Like This, was released in 2023 (Unsolicited Books), along with her translation of poems by Souad Labbize, My Soul Has No Corners (Diálogos Books). Her fourth full-length collection is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press.