If I drape its cage to quiet it
in the night, to keep it warm.

If overnight it claws up dirt
in the bright green lawn.

If it slices through my thoughts
like cries from the next room,

if it settles behind our suite
of cedars like pine straw.

If it returns like burweed in spring
to barb the lost ball, the hand trying

to claim it. If I guard with a hawk’s
peripheral fovea from the nearby oak

its sack of leaves, clutched,
grieving in the wind.

 

 

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Elizabeth Garcia’s debut collection, Resurrected Body, received Cider Press Review’s 2023 Editor’s Prize. Her work has appeared in journals such as Tar River Poetry, Chautauqua, Portland Review, Calyx, and Mom Egg Review. elizabethcranfordgarcia.com

 

 

 

Photos obtained via Unsplash+.