The snow on the trees
this morning looks like
snow clinging to trees—

I want to write “lace”
or “filigree,” but
why make the forest
small enough to edge
a shirt, to dangle
below an earlobe
or circle a wrist?

Say instead I’d like
to wrap myself in
a snow-clad forest,
that I’d like to seem
as fine in the world
as the black-barked tree
silvered in snowfall.

Say I’d like to be
an astonishment
of change—as water
mirrors its liquid
self not at all in
its solid form, as
its contrast contours
trunks, branches, and buds—

say I’d like to speak
of my being here
as ice speaks of trees.

Jennifer Brown (she/her) lives with her partner and a funny-looking dog in Montpelier, Vermont, on unceded Abenaki land. Formerly (and again in the near future) a teacher, currently a part-timer at Hunger Mountain Co-op, she dabbles in bookbinding, sewing, baking, birdwatching, and miscellaneous crafting in addition to writing poetry and nonfiction. Her work has appeared in Copper Nickel, Orison Anthology, Cimarron Review, Zone 3, Twyckenham Notes, and Cinncinnati Review. Her first poetry collection, Natural Violence, was published in 2022 by Brick Road Poetry Press.

Ronny Quevedo (b. 1981, Guayaquil, Ecuador) works in a variety of mediums including sculpture and drawing. He received his MFA from Yale University and BFA from Cooper Union. Quevedo's work was been exhibited at the Denver Art Museum; the Albright Knox Gallery; Foxy Productions; Upfor Gallery; James Fuentes Gallery; the Whitney Museum of American Art; Socrates Sculpture Park and the Queens Museum. Solo presentations include Silueta, Rubber Factory and no hay medio tiempo / there is no halftime, Queens Museum. Group exhibitions include Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay: Indigenous Space, Modern Architecture, New Art at the Whitney Museum and the traveling exhibition Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly. His work has been reviewed in Art Forum and Hyperallergic. His work is held in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Denver Art Museum and other world-renowned cultural institutions. His work is highlighted in Latinx Art: Artists, Markets, Politics by Arlene Davila. Quevedo is a recipient of a Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship and A Blade of Grass Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art. He has held residencies at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Project Row Houses and Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture.