Have You Heard That Birds Memorize Their Parents’ Songs in Sleep?
- Have You Heard That Birds Memorize Their Parents’ Songs in Sleep?
after Virginia Woolf
How many shadows make the dark? It’s 3am & the songsounds like beating. I hold my knees, think of the night
my mother woke covered in ladybugs—all the red that found her& still she left the room. I think of how she cleaned the basement
where grandfather killed himself, arranging pear preservesinto unbroken rows. Long, I have wanted to remember her
song, but the door slams. The popping of a balloon. It’s myfather—his bloodsong bruises the air, asks him to find
the pills & take them. At what point does a family of shadowsbecome the dark? I understand that he ran into a pond in winter
to escape the search dogs, minutes later offered his handslike cold & shattered plates. Imagine, the sound coming from you;
whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting. [End Page 212]
Jess Turner is a poet from Pittsburgh. Currently, she is an MFA candidate at Colorado State University, where she was awarded the 2020 Academy of American Poets Prize. She is the managing editor for Colorado Review, and has previously worked with Autumn House Press. Her own poems can be found in RHINO Poetry, Salt Hill Journal, Ruminate Magazine, and New Delta Review, among others. You can find her by water or in the mountains.
