Three Poems

Lenny DellaRocca

A woman throws her wounds into a birdbath 

turning all the birds that bathe there 

female. 

Their frantic wing-waving 

conjures madness from preening and thirst,

a red commotion of sparks in water. 

Soft electric creatures— 

a fallen constellation of birds—

make magnets of my bones.

So I cup a starling in my hands 

and sift a lullaby from my lips. 

Silk against silk, 

apricots kissing apricots 

in trees.

The woman underneath her backyard sky 

takes sparrows down, 

from mighty clouds she pulls them, 

infinite things of glory.

Like girls in feathers.

Glint

I walked around the side of the house that summer

looking for something I could put in my pocket and take home.

Something as old as rain.

Out of the trees came a voice.

Look, look at the sky.

When the poplar trees caught the sun 

at a certain time of afternoon 

they did something wonderful.

Have you ever been in a room on a wooden floor

warmed by the sun and quietly made secret animals 

shimmer quick and go dark.

That was my great aunt’s house. 

She kept one room with nothing in it for thirty years. 

Died not long after I found the small place 

and made it my fort against time. 

I never grew up there.

I saw 4 o’clock light going home,

and climbed one of the poplars.

It cooled down, and the wind looked out and out.

Have you ever done that.

Go up high to watch the blue edge of where you live,

something that’s not supposed to be seen show its face.

Atmosphere for a Sundial

Like much of everything that falls

this color in the afternoon

obeys a kind of symmetry,

sculpted out of bounds,

which is to say it is beyond the scope of itself.

We arrive in time for birds 

happening in trees like ribbons 

spiraling out of control.

Therefore the air begging your pardon.

Someone has let the canaries out,

or somebody’s thrown artwork to the sky, 

and this time it’s everywhere.

The early moon touches it.

The others have come to question

the whereabouts of everyone else,

and look at me like I know,

standing here with my hands

passing through the white— 

daring the unseen.

We end up some place else,

bright little rumors moving around by themselves 

like spirits in a garden,

wildflower trails that slowly,

simultaneously,

vanish.