Hope is the Thing With Feathers
A Burning Haibun
Here, April means storms. But that day, no one expected hail to bullet out of an open-mouthed
sky. It rolled off the neighboring roofs, ricocheted into our windows, warped the siding. We
stood in the middle of our living room, dumbfounded at the sounds of being surrounded. Fifteen
minutes felt like years. Afterward, we held hands and surveyed the damage. At the end of our
driveway: a bird, head bright red and smashed in, surrounded in the day’s spent rounds. I
imagine everything it did to outrun the storm, the darkness before its body slapped into the
ground. We stand over it, knowing better than to hold its quiet body in our still warm hands and
throw it back into the sky.
⇹ ⇹ ⇹
no one expected war in the middle of living
Fifteen years
we held hands At the end of the day
I imagine everything dark in the
ground. We know better than to hold our hands
to the sky.
⇹ ⇹ ⇹
no one expected
living At the end of everything
dark our hands to the sky.
Planetary Body
after Traci Brimhall
The asteroid foghorn is where.
The pool of starstuff is when.
An ever-widening gyre is why.
Red woven sky on the shoulders
of the sea is what.
Teeth sharpened to a point is how.
Blood that is an exhale is when.
The apple is who. Mother is who.
Magma, mutiny, and mist are who.
Land that carved
into itself a harbor is what.
The secrets remembered without being heard is how.
The pinned back butterfly is when.
Where: the dreams of flying.
Waking in the morning
hobbled is what. The black hole
fist in the bowl of my hips is where.