Cycles, in all their glory, in all their unpredictable consistency, frustrating.
I’m finding new work calling back to old. Moving forward, and yet, backwards.
This poem, written years ago, my first that I ever felt truly proud of. Still, it’s a juvenile poem, a masked voice, before I learned to get out of my own way.
And a new poem. Unedited. Fresh off the pan.
Shell
For K
On the day the egg drops
a baby comes to the garden.
No, it doesn't come, it has been there
since it solidified from yoke to beak.
This is its world. A dandelion clock
with twig legs small orb of fluff.
An unfolded wing
and raised chin
(Are you my mother?)
I have been cracking eggs
into a hot pan
and filming them
in the name of art.
What waste.
I eat them hot
straight from the spatula
swallowing a gag.
Unfledgling with a yellow mohawk.
My chick names it Dandelion.
I weigh its chances
cell-light in my palm.
All spring I have been
surrounded by shells.
Sharp blue confetti.
Cups of rot in the sink-top bin.
Chocolate foil wedged in couch crease.
A lunchbox nest propped on a branch
in futility. These things never survive
Alone. A cocked head makes me
Reconsider, think of snapping insects
between index and thumb, for this,
my new young.
That morning the strip was faint.
My fingertips separating
with resistance
of albumin sliding through
a crack towards the heat.
I take my hand away.
Feathers spread
and with the speed of life
It's gone
into the hedgerow
where it belongs.
As if it had never been ours at all.
Oh Alice, my wee heart x x