Category: Poetry

Little Bird

Kristiana Reed

There is something
in the way you soar;
a love which is visceral
extending beyond
all we could ever hope for

You refuse to give up
even when your wings
are tied and you take flight
on the ground
searching for your ocean sky. 

Your eyes always
watching the great above
believing it is
within your feathery touch 

and little bird –
it is. 

In your metamorphosis
from sparrow
to hawk to eagle. 

You fly ever higher,
grow ever brighter
although you are alone
and far from home.
You leave a breadcrumb
legacy shimmering
in gold; 

the little bird
who did not listen
to what she was told
but pursued the dreams
she felt deep in her bones. .

Kristiana Reed

Babybird

A response to the recent plagiarism controversy re: Ailey O’Toole and Rachel McKibbens

Lannie Stabile

It is slow sludge struggling
through a paper windpipe.
I, myself, am choked,
clogged like a               dead
sewer city. My talent is so
shriveled, so flightless, I can’t
even vomit without vomiting.

A bird                unspun the
snakes within, feigning veins,
that once fed on my inertia,
occupied space in my throat.

She knew her song like it had
perched on her chest for too
many winters. A stout gremlin
tinkering with her lungs
instead of a plane. And when
she coughed up              blud,
I siphoned it from her lips.

Lannie Stabile

Wingless

Charlotte Hamrick

After the storm we waited
for the return of the birds.
The air around the house
was silent
and devoid of flutterings,
a vacuum of tweets and
whistles. What straggling
flowers were left went
hummingbirdless while
twigs and string were
just
twigs and string
with no hope of sheltering
featherless offspring.

It was strangely quiet,
as though they were all
sucked into a void
somewhere and became
dinosaurs again in
another dimension.
They were a wondrous
memory for a time until
slowly winging their way
back home.

Charlotte Hamrick