a poem

Broody

A golden chicken broods over her nest

like the Holy Ghost over the bent world,

and me over past and future tense.

Bite a feather from your breast

tuck and drape those tender eggs

or maybe wooden ones

if you're anything like me today,

fluffed and screeching at each caress.

Settle your haunches over your treasures;

hoard and hide and hiss.

If they pry inside your stony nest

will their gaze turn you back to flesh?

Maybe an over-zealous caretaker will dump you unceremoniously out of hiding,

force you under the reach of yellow light,

turn your stiff neck toward beetroot hyacinth

and frilly scilla siberica, which the hopeful call “Spring Beauty.”

What then?

The narcissus nod in quiet assent:

it's true, you're off your rocker,

staggering there like a clumsy drunk,

refusing what might save you.

If a worm tempts you, your sisters won't tattle.

You haven't failed if you peck and sip.

When you start to totter a little less, shrink and smooth your brittle feathers.

You might begin to feel

that sunshine on your back,

that blue bowl pressing down--

but just as quick, flustered by guilty pleasure, you rattle yourself big,

crest a mohawk cry.

The sudden lurch to arms jostles your dry balance

and you almost fall, your legs like spindles on a wheel

that goes round and round and never stops

even when what you want most of all

is the soft black quiet of a phantom clutch.


{CBK
4.15.2014}