Bird Bones
Rent from DeepDyve- Bird Bones
I'm making a book, putting the bones in first,and then I will feather it with words. I got the shapeyesterday as I sat with my friend at her picturewindow, looking out on a rough-stubbled fieldwhere she has set up bird feeders.
As we talked, I watched a goldfinch feed.Then he swooped straight intothe window and died, breathtakingly.We looked down.
There was no questionhe was nearly dead, wings spread outon the ground. So fast, from feederto death. Bird bones are hollow, you know,as light as life.
My book will contain his thin arched wingsspread on the soil like a striped brown cloak,and his pale yellow beak, which opened onceand closed as he died, clearly calling Ba-ba!piping through the bones of memory. [End Page 136]
Rachel Dacus is a poet and writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area and the author of three poetry books, Gods of Water and Air, Earth Lessons, and Femme au Chapeau. Her writing has appeared in Atlanta Review, Boulevard, Drunken Boat, Pedestal, Valaparaiso Poetry Review, and Prairie Schooner. She is at work on a novel.
