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In need of air, she unhinged every
window, revolving ones downstairs,
upstairs skylights, mid-floor French doors,
swept into the house the salt-brine,
the cricket chirp, the osprey whistle,
the sea-current, sound of the Sound,
but had not noticed the basement
bedroom window shielded by blinds,
screen-less. Later that night when they
returned home, lights illuminating
the downstairs hall, insects inhabited
the ground floor rooms. She carried handfuls
of creatures across a River Styx—
the katydids perched on lampshades,
beach tiger beetles shuttling across
floorboards, nursery web spiders splotching
the ceiling—trying to put back
the wild fury she had released.
The night you were conceived we balanced underneath a tent, amazed at the air-marveler, who, hand-over-hand, seized the stars, then braved the line to carry home a big-top souvenir umbrella. Earth-bound a year, you dare gravity, sliding from the couch to table. Mornings, on tiptoe, stretching fingers, you grab Saturn, Venus and the moons raining down from the sky of ceiling.
". . . Prayer book and Mother, shot themselves last Sunday." Gwendolyn Brooks The spire of Holy Name Cathedral rose like a prayer above Chicago Avenue. I thumbed a leather-bound book in catechism class, recited the Hail Mary. Fire and devils blazed at night. The nuns told my mother I had a calling. On Scott Street a man lay shot dead in our alley. It was the Gold Coast. They prided themselves on sidewalks safe as shrines. I questioned God, the last to leave the room. Riots flared in Cabrini-Green that Sunday.
A flare of russet,
green fronds, surprise
of flush against
the bare grey cypress
in winter woods.
Cardinal wild pine,
quill-leaf airplant
or dog-drink-water.
Spikes of bright bloom–
exotic plumage.
How they contour
against the trunk.
I miss that closeness
against my skin,
milky expression.
Before they latched,
their grief revealed
in such a flash.
Seekers of light,
poised acrobats.
Over the wetlands
a snail kite skims
tallgrass, then swoops
to scoop the apple
snail in curved bill.
The provenance
of names, of raptor
and prey, the beak,
like a trap door,
unhinging flesh.
The way two beings
create a space
for one another—
the bud to branch,
tongue against nipple.
Could have been otherwise and birdsong make us nauseous. And gigantic roiling sunsets give us vertigo. The world of flowers is for insects, not us. But tonic is durance among.