From “Sharking of the Birdcage”

what was it you
wanted us to
say after you died
it’s awful without you making sound exist
you said ponder this
but none of us can remember
what now dear please speak up
when quaking became zeal to open
nothing now but a
medieval barking gargoyle
whoever gave you the tambourine shall
be sheriff of my tender zoo
I am not here
I am in the future
where I have always been
please hurry back and forth to
kiss me my ghost

Credit

About this Poem

“The series of poems ‘Sharking of the Birdcage’ comes out of my recent, long (Soma)tic poetry ritual I created at the MacDowell colony where I meditated with a crystal given to me by my boyfriend Mark Holmes the last time I saw him. He was brutally murdered, leveling my life with depression for a time. These poems mark a healing, a return to wholeness for me.”
—CAConrad

Author

CAConrad

Born on January 1, 1966, in Topeka, Kansas, CAConrad is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including Listen to the Golden Boomerang Return (Wave Books, 2024), You Don’t Have What It Takes to Be My Nemesis (Penguin UK, 2023), Amanda Paradise: Resurrect Extinct Vibration (Wave Books, 2021); While Standing in Line for Death (Wave Books, 2017); Ecodeviance: (Soma)tics for the Future Wilderness (Wave Books, 2014); Philip Seymour Hoffman (were you high when you said this?) (Worms Press, 2014); A Beautiful Marsupial Afternoon: New (Soma)tics (Wave Books, 2012); and The Book of Frank (Wave Books, 2010), recipient of the Gil Ott Book Award. They also authored a book of nonfiction essays, Advanced Elvis Course (Soft Skull Press, 2009).

Date Published

11/05/2014