Our hands move
Stir the dark
Reflect the light
emanating from her skin,
from the dusky spill
of her hair
Where she sits –
luminous, aglow –
in a high-backed chair
carved of ebony
Our hands –
pale moths winging
about her flameless
conflagration –
shift the aromatic
dark
Aflutter
Replicating her glow,
her light.
— C.Birde, 8/21
“Go,
Stray,
Wander
as you must &
as you need…”
Her voice vined,
fruited
with wild grapes.
“When you return,
I will
astonish.”
— C.Birde, 8/21
No sooner
had they fallen,
that trembling sphere
of cicadas held immobile
& enmeshed in spider’s
webs;
Fallen & scattered
in arcane pattern strewn
over squares of white linen
spread over tar-papered
roof;
An arcane pattern
of gleeful arthropods
rewriting their future
as unbound individuals &
collective;
No sooner
had they fallen
into newfound freedom,
than they began,
in a grinning profusion
of pale pink petals,
to b l o o m.
— C.Birde, 7/21
“Hold me —
always —
in your heart…”
She smoothed
fern-laced fingertips
over my brow.
“…for those moments
when it all
feels
too
much.”
— C.Birde, 7/21
Leave them.
Leave them here,
near the white marble
countertop –
paring knife
sweet potato
woman.
Attend, instead,
to the anger,
the flint & spark
of charged words.
Attend
the grief & fear,
the ceaseless fall
of tears.
Follow this unhappy tide –
jaw set
ears attuned
heart clenched
Follow
toward the table
spread with white cloth,
chairs pushed in
to contain that
which lies beneath,
within…
Avoid
the hand that shoots out
from this self-made cage
to grasp at calf,
at ankle…
Grasp
that hand & s-q-u-e-e-z-e
until those fine,
timeworn bones protest,
the hand itself struggles
to retract…
Demand –
c-r-u-n-c-h,
c-r-a-c-k –
demand
that he release the child
he traps beneath.
In exchange,
release your grip.
Exit,
tousle-haired child
weeping against
your neck’s curve,
balanced on
your hip.
— C.Birde, 7/21
“I am vast,
expansive…
I am the smallest
of small…”
She tilted
a smile.
“I am
– like you –
a pleasant contradiction
of selves.”
— C.Birde, 7/21
“Come,”
he said,
and lead me out
beneath the bee tree’s dome.
We stood together,
wreathed
in sweet saturated scent and
downward-descending drift
of apiarian song woven through
that namesake tree’s
flower-pricked upswept
boughs.
And we were one,
and we were one,
and we are ever
one.
— C.Birde, 6/21
Within this timeworn house
of haphazard architecture,
tilting floors & walls leaning
so corridors & large rooms
are winnowed down to small:
A funeral for one who,
in waking life, yet thrives;
while the other pair who,
beyond the dream’s confines
have truly died,
remain alive & utterly besotted
of the two young charges
fostered to their joyful care.
Kneeling,
see how she ruffles their dark hair?
wraps them in embrace,
in smiles & warm kindness?
Strange time to transfer
obligation of such import.
A funeral…
dull ebony coffin stretched
in final demarcation
of the vaguely sloping room;
symbol of thwarted Fates,
of fortunes turned…
And I –
witness to both fact & dream;
to contradiction;
Ghost-like,
I roam the altered account,
unaddressed,
unmarked,
unseen.
— C.Birde, 6/21
“I perfume
the air
with my being…”
She did not brag,
merely spoke
truth.
“You need
only
breathe.”
— C.Birde, 6/21
Gray sea, gray sky
Margins smudged
in all directions
Stretched & stretching
Unbroken & unchanged
but for the smooth fold
& roll of white-capped
wavelets…
Then, movement –
countless pale shapes
schooled & swimming
beneath the gray sea’s
surface in synchronicity
Arms flush to lean torsos,
legs at knees & ankles
clamped, pressed
as though fused…
Their bodies part water
with inhuman, ghostly
grace
No need to surface…
No trail of bubbles
to mark their silent
passage…
Blind & Deaf & Mute
They are the swimming
Dead…
My own eyes sting
my tongue tastes salt
my ears pulse, throb
And then, release…
Within their company,
freed from bodily limits
& swimming…
swimming…
swimming
endlessly…
— C.Birde, 6/21