The Birds: The Grackle

—for Jonathan

I want to make a list
of things small & bright

The crabapple for instance
the one the pearlescent grackle spared

the larva of the codling moth in the core
that moistens & sucks steadfast

the black seeds

quick deaths

the thumbing of a light switch
the flip of the calendar to

& the rain is—

       .       oh never mind

I am terrible at lists

& now there is a muscling in of clouds
a noticeable absence        a missing
of light to read by

*           *           *

About this business of digging down
of tunneling towards
of needling into this rich vein—Come on

any black phoebe knows
a swinging branch is better
when rain comes to the desert

The sun is copper enough
this ammonite fossil from Morocco
golden enough

(All of this     poverty     affords me)

Me & my man in this cabin

see him outside in his crewneck
covering the wood pile
sopped as bread in a thin stew

not smiling

not smiling until
he sees me looking

*           *           *

& how is it
that we have come in

walking without effort

without exactitude

through the held breath of a Mojave storm
jangling coffee money

       .       when the firewood is wet as a shipwreck
       .       & the landlord has called
       .       to say
       .       the cabin is being sold?

I guess we are a ball
let go in a stairway
with just enough slope
       .              .       to be called
       .              .             a stairway

We should be drinking whiskey

from miniature bottles stolen
in our linty pockets

The walk to the car
is lengthened
by what we must
return to
as the storm exhales
I look up to see
a hole where something
is expected to return
& nearly step
into a black aurora
of engine oil
but it is
the grackle
at the last
possible
second
&
lifts
to
the
sky

---

L.I. Henley was born and raised in the Mojave Desert village of Joshua Tree, California. Her chapbooks include Desert with a Cabin View and The Finding (Orange Monkey Press). Big Yes Press recently published her full-length poetry collection These Friends These Rooms in 2016. Her work has appeared in many fine journals including Rhino Magazine, River Styx, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Rust + Moth, and Main Street Rag. She is the recipient of The Academy of American Poets University Award, The Duckabush Prize in Poetry, and the Orange Monkey Poetry Prize. Her manuscript, “Eyelets Under Sun,” has been a finalist or semi-finalist for the Patricia Bibby First Book Award, The Crab Orchard Review Book Award, The Sundress Press Open Reading Period, and the Hillary Gravendyke Prize. She co-owns and edits the online literary and art journal, Aperçus Quarterly.

Featured Image Credit: Great-tailed Grackle Male by Kurt Bauschardt (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Flickr