Invocation for a Return Ticket
       

Let her not think of birds as returned spirits,
the recently dead humbled into plumage.

Small-boned, hot-hearted like that coal-dark
thing rasping in the sycamore, bitter
as a mother's grief. Not the gifted jay
who leaves a metal ring on the deck,
first anniversary after. Nor mourning dove
whose perfect feather falls at her feet.

Certainly not the little twits all hopped up
in the Podocarpus, nor, god help her,
veteran killers, the raptors. Not beauty queens,
swans and peacocks. Possibly flocking ones—
oh, souls of mass disasters—how suddenly they reel,
sky thrown into a feverish burst of ascension.

And the desperate phoebe, black-hooded,
strung out on nerves—teenager
who destroyed himself on railroad tracks.

But who knows otherwise?
She can imagine wanting flight after all this.
Song and warmth of feathers.

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Copyright © 2021 Beverly Burch All rights reserved
from Latter Days of Eve
BkMk Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission