She folded into thinness,
alive within my fingers.
Narrow wings rested accordion-style.
Crease on crease
bright emerald quills
sweetly tucked in alignment
to the warmth of her chest.
I flipped her backwards
once in my palm, her body
stretched across
the heart of my hand;
her head exposed.
The way you'd hold an orchid,
blossom bursting over
your skin melded
to an explosion of beauty
her neck arched, akimbo
to an infinite sky. A noisy
spill of color pulled
for pines, camphor
and sycamores. She burrowed
in the cup of my hand,
and I felt her music
expand from within,
then I watched her fly.
I longed to be her,
so I said goodbye.
Carol Lynn Grellas is a two-time Pushcart nominee and the author of two chapbooks: Litany of Finger Prayers,
from Pudding House Press and Object of Desire newly released from Finishing Line Press. www.clgrellas.com
| This is
a poem about my beloved pet Conure, Calypso, who on one gorgeous
day while we were sunning together in the garden, decided to fly
across the street and landed skillfully on the neighbor's roof.
From there she taunted me for several hours as I waited,
brokenhearted until twilight trying everything in my bag of
tricks to coax her back again. In the morning
she was not visible, yet I could hear her when I called her name.
She would answer back. This went on the whole day. By the following morning she was nowhere to be found. It wasn't until the following day that the neighbor made the discovery. She had died just on the other side of the roof. The most upsetting part of the story is that she never really moved from the initial landing spot. She must have thought I was on my way to retrieve her and I thought she was on her way to find something beyond her home. I've always felt it was rather cruel that the neighbor told me of her passing. I would have so much preferred to think she found her way to the rainforest. But instead she's buried below my bedroom window in a velvet perfume box, beside my favorite lavender roses. I miss her everyday. |
