my mother was an owl, a pellet, me
This poem was originally published in the 2014 print issue of the
University of Connecticut’s student-run literary and art journal, the
Long River Review. (www.longriverreview.com).
I learned about owls in the fourth grade
how they often eat their prey
whole
and then regurgitate the excess parts
bones, teeth
in small gizzard-shaped tufts
eyes squinting, neck
reaching
an open beak
a dropped pellet
I thought my mother was an owl, in the fourth grade
on Saturdays I would sleep late
imprinting my bed with pudgy frame
and she would not sleep at all
imprinting hers with radiated sweat and anxiety
memorizing kernels lining the popcorn ceiling
and then the urge would come
I heard it from my room
a sudden upheaval of self
a retch
eyes rolling, lids fluttering, neck
stretching to a pink bucket
she had the knowing look of an owl
my mother
in the summer before the fourth grade
she couldn’t remain outside
carried her left leg inside
pushed aside the lace curtain of her room
watched the barbecue from her window
I too was an owl that summer
or so I mistakenly thought
I cut dandelions, parts of bushes
weeds from the backyard
put them in a plastic cup
but no flowers allowed in that portion of the hospital
and either later that day or later that month
I went to a carnival
ate a hamburger
regurgitated on the Ferris wheel
continued the cycle
had I paid closer attention during owl lessons that autumn
I would have realized that my mother was not just an owl but
both owl and pellet
the many million parts of her skin, the mole on her left leg
multiplied, multiplied,
preyed on her whole,
(as she, we,
prayed for her whole)
and regurgitated a
pellet
that was laid to rest December
of the fourth grade.
This is the fear that
settles
on my sometimes-sunburned left leg, collarbone, nose
in every hormone-pumped hamburger bite and
hot plastic-water-bottle slurp:
that I might become less the owl
more the pellet
A Marginal Catharsis in Ocher
This poem—the result of a poetic N+7 exercise—
was originally published in the 2014 print issue
of Namaste, the University of Connecticut’s
Human Rights Journal (http://humanrights.
uconn.edu/namaste/). The poem’s Albanian
translation, the poem itself, and commentary on
the peculiarity of the process of translation in this
case, is forthcoming in the Spring 2015 issue of
the University of Connecticut’s graduate student
compilation, The Quiet Corner Interdisciplinary
Journal (http://thequietcornerjournal.com/).
For Deep-Tree
bell-jarred willow of Straange-Kraange of Windsoul
exhaustedly pried, plied, fried, multiplied, and line-dried
on the opposite of Moonday
Ember of Dec
six bowels into the nein-nth
near St. François Hostel.
Burrowed by trolls and suckled from the briars of ambrosia
in berated Albatraz
fib-wary, on the twenty-and-beckoned daze
figs, she spate
receiving draughts from the Whorinoco of Albatraz.
Mooned by the Untried Fates
of Ninny-Fore
and hurt by an Eastern flood
before marooning to Windsoul
she was enjoyed as an Eclectic-Comfort-Trunk
for the Environmentalists of Shrubs and Paper of Eastern
Brambley.
Besides her lumber and pear-ants
she leaves two plotters
one, a jujube-lover
the other a kohlrabi-planter
and a voracious brooder of fowl
on the laden mire of the Albatrazian Ocher.
Furniture sales will be on the Wet-Day
twelve-and-thirty PM
at the Carved Willow Furniture Dome
807 Doomfield Arbor, Windsoul.
Her forest will receive florists
‘twixt five & late and on the Tulip-Day
Final Sales will be hallowed in the Elm Grove Bloominary,
Windsoul.
Floral donations may be made to the Untried Fates
Corroded-Plant Society
PO Box 0222
Merrydayn
12901.