* * *
A Thing with Feathers
Your little soft body
the color of midday sun
unfurled
like a blossom
in a storm, broke out
from a shell once a vessel
of a still life
painted with brushstrokes
pulsating
like moth wings
in the cusp of summer,
partly cradled
in a dome of warm down
your first time mama
plucked
like a scalpel
on the day my love
gave me
his kidney,
a small soft body
the color of love
that filtered the dark
so I could see
shadows
as shadows,
not as ashes, &
light as light—
birds
heading towards
home.
I’ve been told
our story’s romantic.
Two creatures,
puzzle pieces
stitched with one string
a guitarist strummed
while playing
the song of our lives.
Still, I cry
the refrain
every night before bed,
bowing thanks
to soft bodies
like yours
that fought to live.
Your day-old murmurs
from a bill
the size of a baby’s thumb
were swallowed whole
by the sky so wide
you sunk inside,
buried
between walls of your brothers
with bodies like yours,
only weaker.
But my love, he saw you
your eyes
like half moons
fading in battle.
He carried you, sequestered
in his palms
so you wouldn’t fall
to a temperature
a frigid death can catch,
heated
by his breath
until you could find
your own to hold again.
He returned us
to our beds
of pine bark & feathers,
like an angel
defying nature,
laid our little
soft bodies down
so we could find
our way back
to flying again.
Nov 2020
* * *
Shei Sanchez is a writer, photographer, and teacher from Jersey City, New Jersey. Her work can be found in Dissonance Magazine, Gyroscope Review, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Sheila-Na-Gig online and other places. She lives on a farm in Appalachian Ohio with her partner and their riotous crew of chickens, ducks, and goats.
featured photo by Nina Kuka from Pexels
