Bird Eating Bird_ Poems - Kristin Naca [16]
of horoscopos printed on wooden-match boxes.
City where I pinch off the flame after licking my fingers.
City where underground cities upturn cobblestones,
that unearthed are displayed in the Zócalo.
City where they piled earthquake victims in the stadium.
City of remember, of rumble, of growl.
City where I fell in a hole and I wanted to die.
City where I sat on the curb and cried.
City where my foot sagged like a snapped tree limb.
City where I was stuck full of pushpins.
City where I howled into a pillow when I got back to bed.
City where I held it in and sweat.
City where you sat at the foot my bed to bear witness.
Where I bawled before you, and felt that moment the deepest sense of witness.
As you watched speechlessly and did not judge.
Where you returned to the accident scene and found a girl’s shoe.
Where there’s a hole as long as I kept longing for you.
City where all Sandra’s warnings pretty much came true: city of hazard,
city of spill, city of hustle, city of tweak, city of the too frequently mopped floor.
In Mexico City, you learn to walk with an eye-patch or cane.
City where I limped through a crowd of the lame, down a street of farmácias.
City where I practiced my tenses: have limped, had limped, had been limping.
City where I limped (meaning yesterday).
City where I limped (meaning my entire life).
City where I tensed before taking a step.
City where change is better kept in your pocket.
And where every outstretched palm is a prayer.
Oh, palm tree with the disheveled, turned out folds of bark.
Pummelled, volcano rock used for decorative edging in Cuauhtémoc Park.
Filets of orange meat pierced through and stood up on a spit, cork-shaped, shaved and cooked until the shards heap up on a foamy grill.
Sometimes love looks worse than it is,
the ring of grit at the hem of a pant leg,
the black on the bottom of a kettle.
CATCHING CARDINALS
—Annandale, Virginia
For a week, he stacked dusty sacks
of birdseed in a kitchen corner,
and we acted like the towering stack
wouldn’t topple us during dinner.
His booby-trap, white cotton twine,
a stick, and a pen he put together
from two by fours and chicken wire
peeled off a thorny ream at Hechinger’s.
Out of nowhere, the gold-plated cage—
the same gold cage where, for years,
lived our pet cockatoo, who spent all day
spitting seed husks on the furniture.
Then, one night, Dad cut up bread
with scissors. I woke up with the smells
of coffee, menthol cigarettes, and sweat
burning the skin inside my nostrils.
I dashed to a window to watch him
and my brother. In a shallow slant
in the yard, they hid out, ready to rip
the cord and walk away red bird in hand.
They chased bluejays with rocks. Swarms
descended. I heard the screen door snap.
I still picture streaks of blood down his arms
from wrestling blackbirds from his trap.
It took days for Dad to capture his prize.
Once he did, I remember, I looked
at this wild thing and wondered why
it was so important. How it shrieked, bled,
and shoved its beak through the rods,
into the unbound air.
NOTES
The song “Gavilán o Paloma,” “The Hawk or the Dove,” was written and performed by José José.
“Becoming” and “Revenant Gladness” are after Ann Lauterbach poems.
About the Author
Kristin Naca is a CFD Fellow at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she teaches Asian American and Latino poetry and creative writing. Her poems have appeared in Indiana Review, North American Review, and Rio Grande Review. She lives in Minneapolis.
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Credits
Cover design by Milan Bozic
Cover painting by Heather Hagle
Illustration of bird by Justin Dodd
Copyright
BIRD EATING BIRD. Copyright © 2009 by Kristin Naca. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen.