MAGPIE              

 

Late July I pulled the bird out of the sky & she gave herself to me

in the backyard of my parent’s home

& During I noticed that the garden hadn’t been tended & a locust

ate all the roses.

 

She sang such a sweet song

I knew I must keep her,

so  I took her home & I found a twine cage,

to watch her, & feed her.

My bird ate with a fine taste for sage,

she drank thick nectar from the bosom

of milkweed, & each sticky night her feathers parted

and she took care of my needs.

 

Days turned to weeks,

weeks to months,

Then one day,

 

Feb 11 to be exact,

 

I found a knife in my parent’s garden and punctured my bird 13 times in the back.

 

When they strap my limbs down

to a bed I have never known

I remember back to late July and let out a WAR CRY

for the magpie I dethroned.

 

 

 

Barbara (I)

 

Beware of the current, my dear /We don’t

carry life vests on board, my dear and the water

looks ripe with rage /If you tumbled over

the edge I’d have to dive in

after you, you see, and since I know not how

to swim any more than you, my dear, I’d plummet

into the tinted blue-green blackness where

not even a submarine could help me reach you /My

dear, stuck in a motherless home learning

how to braid hair off of the widowed back of a

Father who would tell you your eyes remind him of the

Sea /He would send you to his closest relative who

would take you in but, my dear, you’d be stuck washing

hands in the sink hoping fingers don’t have lungs

to drown /And

from the back curve of an aged conch shell

eighty years later I would hear the echo of your voice

say to your granddaughter “learn to swim for our mothers” /