​PROSE POETRY​

DIANE LEBLANC
​

WINTER SELF


I eat from the root cellar tubers and gourds, cave dweller in January, not quite bear or bat, awake but stunned by habitat, wandering in search of green stalks and florets, but already my blood forgets the promise of surge and flow, as when river ice breaks and water, never still, muscles through shards and swells the edges, dislodges silt and apathy, disrupts civilizations I can’t see, all this from hunger asking how much longer cold will trim the gingko white and lead me empty-handed, home to wait in the pale curve of gourds for morning, coriander, and birds.
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​Diane LeBlanc is a writer, teacher, and book artist with roots in Vermont, Wyoming, and Minnesota. She is the author of four poetry chapbooks and a full-length collection forthcoming from Terrapin Books in 2021. Poems, essays, and reviews appear in Bellingham Review, Cimarron Review, Green Mountains Review, Mid-American Review, Sweet Lit, and Tinderbox Poetry Journal, among others. Diane is a professor of writing at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Read more at www.dianeleblancwriter.com .