Page 47 - WTP Vol.VII #2

Passenger Pigeons
Emerald hued, soft winged, your massed flight pattern like a dark gale of angels swooning, thick roosted, wind nested, sky blackeners, progeny begot in an endless web of leaves under cover of cloud. Givers of food, small roast of skin and flesh, sport for the meek, target,
in the final book, a numbered accession for a coming dearth
of belief. There are two, there will be ten after forty, forty
within the blink, forty million until the end of time, written, unless the tide turns and the boat capsizes in the oily, brown surf.
Emzara, the wife
Bone-built, bone thin, bone weary wife; cleaner of chattel, stower
of goods, turner of cheek. Into this shower, torrent, torment, harbinger
of flood, the stuff that washes dreams, drowns infants, into all
crowds, you come striding, sorting couples, summoning the check, vanquishing lust, ordering the dinners, paying the bill, gathering coats, (furs, wools) and arguments, allaying fears, cleaning the bins and mangers, wiping the noses, wicking the lamps with ease and patience, keeping more than two seeds dry in the hidden seam of your linen apron.
White is an artist and writer living in Boston. Her writing has been published in Ibbetson Street Press, Blast Furnace, Solstice Literary Magazine, Poetry Quarterly, The Boston Globe, Halfway Down the Stairs, Split Rock Review, and Gravel. In 2016, she received a Massachusetts Cultural Council Poetry Finalist Grant and was selected in 2016 and 2017 for the Mayor of Boston Poetry Program.
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