—after Gwendolyn Brooks
that which is betwixt us of the lampooned lips and noses
indissoluble as blood impassioned by a serene swatch of sky—
envy of the blessing of birds and the divine shadow
cast to provide protective canvas for our bones of calcified light
the chains that wore us in the fashion of diamond-studded pendants
and the names that the ocean omitted from history with a wave
envy of the privilege of birds and the low-hung cumulus
carried in baskets through the blistering heat by blistered hands
the wade into waters as stoic as windows during sudden storms
and the burdens branches bore without snapping loose from life
envy of the immunity of birds and the wooden instrument
of spiritual salvation snared in blasphemous flames on front lawns
the holes punched into the balloter before their ballot was boxed
and the dialects curbing the confidence of compass needles
envy of the license of birds and the coldness weathered
that is distinct from the weather met in thoroughly wintered towns
the hearty home made of a humble house stood up in hostile borders
and the insomnia that hope prerequisites in its toilsome making
envy of the prerogative of birds and the severity of the last
syllable or even more so the softness of it when we say it
siblingly in casual salutation— lavishly each other’s harvest
seriously each other’s business envious of the birthright of birds
Copyright © 2025 by Cortney Lamar Charleston. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 1, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.