my only thoughts were how to talk about the banner marks
on hawks, and how my little niece would live the night, who
aspirant of earth had breathed meconium, the tar of poppy seed.
the soul too soon. always a little ahead of itself, pledging more
than it has, holding just the halter rope, even from day one,
nothing fatted in hand. and yet, already on the tongue,
a givenness to wagering, the way prepared as if with fronds
of palm on paving stone for sweetness, myth, the words
accipiter and occiput, their brittle glint against the palate bone,
its hollow ravening. the whole body humming, relearning
every morning its one mean song, the loop of thread around
the tarsus of a thorn bird in a painting I have seen of christ
the newborn boy, and in his hand the string, and what would
pluck his crown one day a frantic toy. a fibrillation in the air
called natalie, a christmas name, the birthday of the lord,
her body cooled to help it focus less on brain than breath,
the costlier acquirement. but soon one day to have it come
as cheaply and unsought as pouring out, archaic grace
of spilling cream, a richness dropped from stumbling then
slosh, our giggling unwarranted. our common estate. kings
fold in the folds inside the lung, and in the pharynx carol brass
and wenceslas, and come with us breathed close upon your ear (o
———————————————————–—well-come one
Kylan Rice’s poetry and prose have appeared in Colorado Review, Kenyon Review Online, Tupelo Quarterly, Quarterly West, and West Branch. He is the author of the poetry collection An Image Not a Book (Parlor/Free Verse) and the essay collection Incryptions (Spuyten Duyvil).
