POET’S CORNER: INUNDATION–BIRDS AND BEASTS OF SPRING

20 Mar POET’S CORNER: INUNDATION–BIRDS AND BEASTS OF SPRING

Editor’s Note: TIO is excited to welcome poet Kierstin Bridger to our Poet’s Corner family.  Kierstin is the 2011 winner of the Mark Fischer Poetry Prize and the contest’s 2012 judge. She splits her time between Telluride and Ridgway and is currently pursuing her MFA through Pacific University. Check out her bio to learn more about her and where to find more of her published work.

Raindrops on the windscreen
ever upward like salmon, like sperm
and the starlings together
dipping in unison
avoiding power lines,
murmuration I murmur

I pass isolated figures
the smoker on break outside Conoco,
a “v” of a man head tilted down,
haunches extended

The stooped grey shoed grandmother
soggy owl library bag, crossing 4 lanes alone
The chap for hire, Jesus Cruz, in the pollo costume –
wet polyester fur and umbrella,
pacing a bleary communion invocation

A fellow driver shoots me a peace sign
I want to dab at the eyes of the world
though it’s mine that seem damp,
driving home, ignoring the calls
from my flock, my tribe

The poets say the sky is bruised
maybe it’s just lined paper after
dozens of erased sums, trying, then failing
and beginning again
reach and swipe, reach and swipe the pattern returns

Let’s forgive our hedgehog selves,
our spiny ball of defense,
toss the solitary and reach for each other
tonight the drizzle will turn snowy
the morning roofs and sidewalks
will unfurl a merciful white snowflake accord