Toni Artuso

I tread gingerly, crunching on mud
made suddenly solid
by capricious Arctic blasts
that throw Spring’s thaw into reverse.

I stop,
arrested by the rustle of chimes:
thin, delicate music from

a bed of upstart tulips,
red-and-yellow flashes
in a miry field.

Swaying on spindly stems,
tossed by the bitter breeze,
frozen brittle petals become bells,

until the next warm day,
when they will brown, curl,
fall into the softened muck.

 

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TONI ARTUSO (she/her/hers) is a trans female writer from Salem, Massachusetts. Her verse has appeared in Honeyguide Literary Magazine, which nominated one of her villanelles for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her poems have also appeared in The Christian Science Monitor,Eclectica, Space City Underground Literary Magazine, samfiftyfour, Nixes Mate Review, Molecule, Salamander, The Cackling Kettle, The Lyric, Star*Line, and Ibbetson Street Press. X (Twitter): @TAltrina. Instagram: @tonialtrina.