A PIGEON IS A ROCK DOVE
Before poetry
My Grandmother taught me to pray
Hallowed be thy name— & lost her mind. I watched
Her solemn back curled form;
I, child, one eye cracked
My Grandmother lives in the shelter of my undoing
Holds my hand, asleep; contained
Within her dreams my heart—
break: her black eyes grey
Her hair white all
at once.
My Grandmother all dreamspeak. Up
She floats, reels the popcorn ceiling & back
breaks heavy, glass mind shatters my bedroom
My Grandmother, shelter while
I unraveled
My Grandmother, sheltered
Unravels—
~
All Pigeons are Rock Doves
Someone told me, symbolic
of peace and good news
Blessed are the meek
Sky rats flock a pizza crust.
I feel for the one: footless straggler
Wingtorn, nubbed flutter
Worse for wear
—I cheer for that one:
Ain’t dead yet, bud.
Good for you. Bird.
Don’t need feet to fly, Bird—
Mourning doves, they never
bothered me; dumb things, all murmur & free.
They rush the tops of buildings all
at once
What same circuitous thought
propels them to leap—?
What keeps my Grandmother
Tethered to this world— hard bed & ceiling?
No TV, headache—
No sleep, all horses her legs fused
& bow tied
Determined beatific thing won’t you let go?
Oh, pathetic, gentle
Hobbler, I cheer for you
~
At home we fuss and mourn
At night I listen while she dreams
No sleep, headache—
Shouts and incantations, all horses
Old histories, her legs bowed to God
My Grandmother sees birds on the ceiling
Describes them the same. Asks:
“Aren’t you tired, Pigeon?
Don’t you want
to stop?
Let go
& rest,
now
Gentle
Dove?”
GROUNDLING
1.
I hold anger like my mother
wedged between shoulder and spine
where wings should have sprouted
but didn’t.
Where the nubs grew over, skin and feather
left her back hunched,
her lips pursed,
her gaze flitting elsewhere, elsewhere
but sky.
I hold it like disrupted prayer,
two palms clenched
Or an unfinished poem,
impatient, pacing.
I hold anger like my mother
who did not have poetry
Who felt the itch of becoming
plucked each new feather
And stuck around,
filled the emptiness
with other beasts.
Anger, like my mother,
Who did not have poetry
No words to tell me why.
2.
Mother, my wings are heavy
with beasts I have carried
As I have seen you do,
I learn by sight and feel,
and like you I am deaf to caution.
Mother, I have discovered a word
for those who fly away – Wisdom
Hope – for those who stay
3.
My daughter will be born a wingless thing
like her mother, like mine
I wonder if hers will sprout at all,
if she will fly –
Or, if woman after woman, the body
has forgotten how
Groundling,
Do not discard your wings,
hope alone will not provide
But should they never come
do not stick around
and place your anger
between blade and bone
Do not shoulder the empty beast
and stay.
My Groundling, remember
the house of your own embrace
Remember
your two feet
and walk.
Christine No is a Korean American writer and filmmaker. She is a Sundance Alum, VONA Fellow, two-time Pushcart Prize Nominee and Best of the Net Nominee. You can find her work in: The Rumpus, sPARKLE+bLINK, Columbia Journal, Story Online, Apogee, Atlas And Alice, & various anthologies. Christine is a cohort of the Kearny Street Workshop Interdisciplinary Writers Lab, the Winter Tangerine Writers Workshop, and is an Assistant Features Editor at The Rumpus. She lives in Oakland with her dog Brandy.
