Feather crane swarm
the ravine between the highway and the field fills with smooth sumac
broken in the hand it stains leaves red
on the palm
my sister broke her her baby tooth at the zoo
same three-year-old body on the bluff at that parade watching floats across concrete
stepped in the fire ant nest in her jelly sandals, with her small feet.
my mother stripped her of her clothes of her terry suit too late to save her the biting,
my sister still resents her young nakedness in a crowd of people of insects, she was
rough on her body. we have always been rough on our bodies.
spit shone from our foreheads, ashed crosses smear and sweat out from clay soil,
we didn’t want any baptisms, didn’t want any blessings until we were left
without benediction for our sick body leaving us, my mother’s hands puckering
done drinking and her limbs the first to go cold. the blood stayed to her belly.
when she died, the nurse dressed her in a clean dress
and I lay by her simple body,
noplasticnotubes body cotton and skin as the muscles relaxed from their living
let her fluid go stain her pelvis
pigment swelling clay soil earth to clouds take a color swarming
reflect the brimmed arsenals below plants rusting, all that iron in the cloth tooth of her death dress
green holding white birds, cotton settling down
ξ
"Feather crane swarm" was first published in Hubbub.
Kelly Hoffer earned an MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her book manuscript, Undershore, was a finalist for the 2020 National Poetry Series and a semifinalist for Tupelo Press's 2020 Berkshire Prize. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, Mississippi Review, Yalobusha Review, Prelude online, The Bennington Review, and the inaugural issue of Second Factory from ugly duckling presse, among others. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Literatures in English at Cornell University. Learn more at: https://www.kellyrosehoffer.com/
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