NYB–Poetry Series #12
FEATURING
AMANDA OAKS
for the birds, may all beings be well
every year, just before spring,
my skinny legs would wobble
a kitchen chair in the middle
of my grandmother’s backyard,
the scissor-scissor of the spray
bottle mixing with the sun to border
my body in rainbows, comb-comb
cut, comb-comb cut, march’s wind
carrying with it what fell
she would tell me the birds
needed it more than i did
the bendable beauty of
my auburn hair winking
in the spring sun, weaved in
mud, twigs, bits of newspaper
& string, whatever she could find
to build a home
i think of her heart, four
hundred beats per minute
warming & waiting for
the sharp squawks
that follow
the constant give
& take that a
mother’s love
brings
Amanda Oaks’ work has appeared in Poesy, Nerve Cowboy, Tears in the Fence, Denver Syntax & Zygote in my Coffee. She lives in western Pennsylvania, where she edits the print journal words dance & runs verve bath press which publishes handmade chapbooks. She is the author of several chapbooks including dreams that would drown most men (Rose of Sharon Press, 2008) co-authored with John Dorsey.
Link: http://wordsdance.com
Beautiful poem. Thanks for sharing Amanda’s work.
I like it a lot, I can totally see all Amanda describes.