BRIGHTLY

Window open:

a fullness in the gingko

carried over continents

maybe saying

how long could I live

on just water

and the sight of you

each blossom entirely alone

finds a sweeter winter

in its disposition

and the sky clouds

with uplift

Jay Deshpande is the author of Love the Stranger (YesYes Books, 2015). He has held residencies at the Saltonstall Arts Colony and the Vermont Studio Center, was a fellowship finalist for the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and was selected by Billy Collins for the 2015 Scotti Merrill Memorial Award at the Key West Literary Seminar. His poems have appeared in Narrative, Boston Review, Sixth Finch, Atlas Review, Handsome, Spork, Prelude, and elsewhere.