“Subside” is about emerging from hibernation. Literally, it’s a springtime poem, April bringing out the first flowers and warming the weather enough to open windows. But it’s also about a certain reentry into the world, of potential love, of centered self, after a period of physical and emotional difficulty that has sent the speaker—as strife does so many of us—into self-imposed isolation. This is a soft, tentative return to a blooming world.

Montanan poet Ellie Snyder writes and manages social media for a global nonprofit and is passionate about literature, fashion and music. Find her work in Pangyrus, The Dewdrop, Pile Press, Pinky and elsewhere.

I: @elliegsnyder