Feathers twisted through the air,
Tangled and caught,
In the aimless descent
Of a dying spirit.
No longer joined to muscle and bone
Or unified by movement
And the intuition of flight,
They settled to earth
In a gentle chaos.
Quills tipped with red
Wrote of the inaudible fear,
Of the death suspended in the sky.
Too distant for sympathy or horror,
Yet close enough to respect
The nimble brutality
Of a graceful and admirable kill.
– Melinda Giordano
Author’s Note: The poem was inspired by the strange beauty and grace I’ve seen of birds fighting, talons locked, spinning through the air. A deadly ballet.…
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and slowly I would rise and dress
fearing the chronic angers of that house
Robert Hayden
Well into adulthood I remember my mother
would walk with me in the pre-dawn
grade school days, bundled against cold,
and with each other, against my father.
We crept like criminals through the house
into sparsely lamplit streets where,
out of earshot, we could talk about him,
alone in bed unbothered in sleep, or
earlier up, off to his own refuge from us:
the work that kept us fed, and him, in habit.
We talked about his drinking years ago—
Betty Ford Clinics before I was born, and
gambling debt; desperate and angry, my mother
hid away from him his pistol, dumped
the crudely stashed bags of mini-bottles,
and went alone to beg the bookies
for time to work it out—we talked about
the time since (if she suspected he was
drinking, she kept it from me): how terrible
he was to be around; how sullen he’d become.…
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I. Flicker
A bulb flickers /
a tired eye closing /
and then / nothing.
The walls whisper.
And silence comes next /
not of peace / no /
but of ten people holding breath.
At the edge of a day unravelling /
darkness soaks our fatigue.
We look at each other /
a strange assembly /
struck / by misfortune or luck?
Huddled in a remote valley.
Lightning lashes the roof of the shed.
The children crawl from their beds /
not in fear /
but in intrigue /
as if the night itself
has opened its mouth to speak.…
...continue reading
“You have my
complete devotion,”
so the letter ends,
but I mail it
to the pond instead.
The window opens
to an eastern haven:
blackbirds, catbirds,
Carolina Wrens.
With seasons of
attention,
I learned the
Cardinal’s song.
Even if the species
went extinct,
flew away,
or settled
somewhere far,
even if I hadn’t heard
their call in years,
I would run
at once
to hear the voice
I knew by heart.
– Grace Sullivan
Author’s Note: We open in the middle of a letter to someone. The kind of person who, even when life changes, has a hold on your heart that sustains over time and distance. The “Cardinal” could be a stand-in for this person that the speaker remains loyal to in spite of discouragement.…
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The email draft sits unsent.
Not because I don’t know the words,
but because I do.
My phone buzzes,
and I let it.
The silence is easier
than explaining myself
to another rectangle of light.
I’ve learned how to smile
in the doorway,
to shrug when someone asks,
How’s it going?
They don’t really want to know.…
...continue reading
The wars never end,
nor does the bloodshed,
and it makes men rich.
The world has gone crazy.
The children continue to starve,
their cries fill the air,
Elsewhere food is wasted.
The world has gone crazy.
The water, air, and food are poisoned.
The oceans and its life are dying.
Mankind can’t see the forest for the trees,
that are falling to the axe of its own greed.
The world has gone crazy.…
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They thought they buried her
beneath silence,
beneath shame,
beneath the twisted shadows
of what was never her fault.
A girl, broken open
before she knew what “no” could mean.
Her innocence wasn’t lost
it was stolen, stripped
by hands that never knew the weight of consequence.
But still,
she breathed.
Each day she woke
with trembling limbs and fractured dreams,
but she woke.…
...continue reading