Crow Woman Learning to Speak
What you think you know of my eye
is a country you haven’t seen. Step twice
into the airway of my iris,
and I’ve flown away
to some other meaning,
dark pupil neither indigenous
nor prehistoric, but everything
prophetic that’s ever climbed into sky
to start a riot of wind and language
tethered by Caw-caw and the circling
of destination, both nowhere
and everywhere you’d want to travel.
Don’t think of fleeing; it’s too late.
But don’t stay, either.
Make your mind’s feathered fear
hover. Now. What you think you know
of my beak, that’s just the beginning
of confusion capsized into blunder,
the long snap of it clicking calculations,
the scavenger in me snipping
at your flesh and flesh-of-your-flesh
or maybe snatching you up heroically
into salvation, the high altitude of it
where magic mimics soaring
and rainbow-flecked black
and lush jungles dangle
the promise of some genus of freedom
you’ve only breathed from the tops of trees
when like me you were both
crow and woman
learning to speak
the language of sky.
(by Marjorie Maddox)
Crow Woman Learning to Speak; Design by Karen Elias; image by Freepik
[sic]
I am [he was] [he no longer is] protecting me [protecting himself]
loving me [loving himself]
Who he was [he no longer is] does [doesn’t] define/rescue/rename/remake
me/him.
Why did you bring this up again? Why did you take it out of the brackets where it so neatly
contained itself for decades? O poem, O keypad, O racing mind. Brackets toppled to the side
are a stool to climb and see over [under] [behind] [through]
Are you [you, you, me, me, him] really starting [stopping] [pretending]
all this again? The bracket [flat] [wobbling] [uneven] on its back
is a [tub] [bed] [open mouth] [deep hole] where he will not
put anything [ever] [never] [didn’t] [could have] like the other one with his [hand] [fist] [voice]
[expired love]. The bracket [s] upright on its [their] side is a [clunky] [smooth] elevator; push
this button to go up, this one to go down, this one to go decades back in time
“To which floor would you like to climb?” asks the doorman, the elevator operator,
the former [therapist] [lover] [friend]. [Write] [type] [cry] [whisper] your answer
right [ ] or [ ]. I’ll wait over here by my [other] [corrected] [revised]
self, the one [outside] [beyond] [impervious to] all [any] [even a bit of] reworking the scene
[sentence] [sentiment] of what happened or didn’t, the [sic] [sic] [sic] [sic] of brackets.
Quote me. [Don’t] quote me. Quote him [don’t] quote [sic].
(by Marjorie Maddox)
The Sic of Brackets, design by Karen Elias; silhouette by Freepik
Annual Physical
Yes, I know you can’t see them,
those veins that are really bare branches
and reach far outside my body
until they knot into buds,
then eventually bloom so bright
and buoyant you’d write ten more prescriptions
if only you could see far enough into my eyes
or down my throat to sense
the roots squirming,
the trunk thickening,
the bark splitting
into kaleidoscope bursts of creativity,
which is what this body breathes,
caught up as it is with mind and spirit
through even the most sepia of winter days,
stretching far past just bones and flesh,
stethoscope, this cubical of an office,
and the framed photo of your degree
toward that one small window,
and the sun and the small twig
that is just now sprouting
from your ear.
(by Marjorie Maddox)
Inwardness, collage by Karen Elias
