by Alicia Hoffman
Birds on a branch, we are.
Balancing bodies, some other wing
flitting the alphabet, scrambling words.
Are we the birds on the branch
that chatter inaccessibly, bobbing
heads, no more? Do we start in flight
such jittery things, our undecipherables
always going forward as if heartbeats
were only electricity firing into synapse?
Embroidery so weaved, we become
inextricably tied here, where gravity
is a loud pop and a door slam,
a ducat sparkling a million flashes
of light. Branching, we are
birds on a precipice, a shale cliff,
a wire. Do you, too, tremble?
Do you, too, quake? Do you, rook
of the sharp beak, of the tactical
strategy, look to the promise of eggs,
darkened coming night now, speckled in sugar?
Originally from Pennsylvania, Alicia Hoffman now lives, writes and teaches in Rochester, New York. Author of Like Stardust in the Peat Moss (Aldrich Press), her poems have appeared in a wide variety of publications, including A-Minor Magazine, Redactions: Poetry and Poetics, Poets & Artists, SOFTBLOW, Camroc Press Review, Tar River Poetry and elsewhere. Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, she is currently completing her MFA in Poetry at the Rainier Writing Workshop.
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