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INFO CLASSES VISITING WRITERS LINKS STUDENT WRITING ENGLISH DEPT.
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Poetry
- Berkeley by Cathy Che
- Harvest by Krista Hanson
- The Kiss by John Bower
- Return by Samia Rahimtoola
- The Seine at Argenteuil by Kate Peebles
- Speaking To The Mirror by Joey Rubin
- ‘Work of Mourning' by Elyse Fenton
- MISSOULA by Mackenzie Cole
- Mud Roads by Chalcey Wilding
Gift
There must have been a moment
when my father knew things could not go differently—
when the goose nested on the road sensed what was coming
and climbed the air, trying to clear the roof,
hemmed by cars and trees,
my brother singing into his headphones,
my book up, the dog between us, my mother asleep,
headlights peeling the road up
into the explosion of windshield and body
that seamed us with little stars
and a plume of brother’s awed obscenities—
glass spackling my father
as the bird struggled in his lap,
dark and heavy as a netted fish,
pumping a little, weaving
her broken neck.
Her wings were huge; they threshed
his thighs, thumping, bruising him,
leaving plum-colored marks
that would stay for weeks,
and for a moment I lost her
in a sculpture I’d seen,
a skeleton of wings, iron rusting
into glass feathers, prehistoric—
but this bird’s flapping was a shattering,
and my breath, slipping
down the memory of limbs
of iron and glass intended for buildings
and windows, for the joints
of walls and heaven, caught
as the jewels
of glass and blood
scattered up against the headlights,
webbed the windshield, nested the backseat—
I thought our car and the bird
in my father’s lap were raining,
flying into indistinguishable grit.
It wasn’t until we pulled the goose from him, laid her
on the gravel shoulder in the shadows
starting from the trees,
made him walk a little in the fierce grass
that had swallowed the last of the sun,
that I could breathe,
seeing her real again, gravel beaded
at the snap of her neck, stretching
exactly as wide wing to wing
as my body when laid for sleep,
each feather human, pearly, ending softly.
~ Chalcey Wilding
Last Updated: November 16, 2007
