Blackpoll Warbler
A migration: quiet and overhead
but not near me, the blackpoll warbler
has packed its body into a carryon
of its own design to cross the Atlantic
in three days without stopping,
bound for South America. I could be
the warbler singing at South American
sunrise, the appetite returned
ravenous. The body is consequence
of time, there is no other plan
to fall back on when cold air begins
to ruffle feathers. The warbler is awake
carrying more than just memory,
the way a body finds another in darkness
with an ease that startles.
Blackbirds
They were red-winged,
let’s all be on the same page
with that one.
They fell from the sky
before midnight, flashes
of red, spiraling
bodies hitting the ground
next to the mailboxes
in the cul-de-sacs
of Beebe, Arkansas.
I’d like to leave a little
room for explanation.
We have science, after
all, and lots of it. 5,000
red-winged blackbirds
startled to death by
fireworks, and blunt force
trauma to boot?
Forgive me, curiosity
pushes its way to the front,
and I get moody
not knowing. I’d like to leave
a little room for explanation.
The beak is delicate.
So is the breast.
But the flock is strong.
They are lucky
it wasn’t the heart that
exploded, messy and beyond
explanation.
Hannah Larrabee has had poems appear in Rock & Sling, Printer’s Devil Review, Best Indie Lit in New England, Tidal Basin Review, Contemporary American Voices, Extract(s), and others. Her chapbook, Virgo, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2009 and nominated for a Massachusetts Book Award, and a PEN New England Literary Award. She received a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from the University of New Hampshire.
