Spring
From the window I saw a red-tailed hawk, perched
in a tree, eating one of the neighbors’ chickens.
I’d seen that chicken before, standing in the sun
next to her sister, new grass and clover
beneath their feet, while the neighbors worked
on the coop. I knew they might shrug it off,
say, That’s nature, bound to lose a few.
But if she had been mine, I would want to know
what had happened. Someone over there had cared
for her, fed her, maybe petted her feathers.
I decided to leave a note. I started to write,
She seemed like a nice chicken—quiet, demure,
winsome even. Then I stopped myself.
Best to stick to the facts. At the end, I added,
So sorry. I left the note in their mailbox.
Walking back, I saw a burst of feathers
below the branch where the hawk had been.
Some of the feathers had a little curve to them,
like a chrysanthemum tricked into early bloom,
perennial though the flower is gone.
These Days
When I get up, it’s still dark. I feed the cats,
set the coffee to brew. To oats soaked
overnight, I add cinnamon, candied ginger,
blueberries, a sprinkle of split cashews.
I imagine the hands that dug the ginger
and cut it into cubes before my hands
cut it into smaller cubes. I sit by a lamp
and read a poem in silence. I listen.
Beyond the burble of coffee dribbling
into the carafe, I might hear howling wind
or the no-sound of snow falling. Maybe
a late owl or the neighbor leaving
for an early shift at work. I think of you,
so far away, out west where I once was,
coastline eroding into its own majesty,
hazy valleys sprawling under geometries
of light, asphalt ribboning the land
with traffic that barely lessens overnight.
I wish you could be in the same blue
as me, this darkness blue as blueberries.
Wish I could roll it over mountains
and canyons to you. My friend,
what do you do to sustain yourself
these mornings, these days?
Losing My Mind
I started losing my mind again.
But then I wondered why we say
losing my mind, when it’s really
being submerged, engulfed,
consumed by mind. So I revised
to losing myself to mind. And then
I wasn’t anymore. I was thinking
about thinking, choosing distance
without losing anything. That night,
I was lying on my side, a question
that might never be answered,
when the disruptors arrived,
clearing four stairs at a time,
chirping from the darkness
of their throats. One curled
into the cradle of my belly,
where a baby would’ve been
if I’d ever thought to have one.
The other pressed himself
against my back, facing away,
bones of tail along bones of spine.
The three of us dissolved
to listen for the first bird
of morning, which never lasts
but always comes again.
Brett Warren (she/her) is the author of The Map of Unseen Things (Pine Row Press, 2023). Her poetry has appeared in Canary, Halfway Down the Stairs, Harbor Review, Hole in the Head Review, ONE ART, Rise Up Review, and other literary publications. A triple nominee for Best of the Net 2024 (Poetry), she lives in a house surrounded by pitch pine and black oak trees—nighttime roosts of wild turkeys, who sometimes use the roof of her writing attic as a runway. www.brettwarrenpoetry.com