I want to love the crane.
She surprises me bright against
the blue of my morning walk—
more omen than beacon—
tiptoeing stilts around the open
throats of empty bottles, foil
wrappers peeking from the muck
of this place we call harbor.
Does she dream of the green
choked world? Now drowned
ruin. Not all disasters are natural.
I’ve blown up my life, fucked
a man not mine to make it so.
I’m envious of animals with only
biology to answer for. This bird,
stock-still stands for all birds,
I could come back
tomorrow and have no idea
if she is this one or another
or if her bones remember
dinosaurs or the first
time she took the sky.
All of us, colonizers.
Lisa Mecham is a writer living in Los Angeles and she finds her bio boring. Instead, please read the work of María Isabel Álvarez, Colette Arrand, b: william bearhart, Gwen Benaway, Linda Chavers, Maya Chinchilla, Joyce Chong, Jayy Dodd, Miguel Morales, Karuna Riazi, Jasmine Sanders, and Alice Wong.
