Self-Portrait with Road-Kill
May is for warblers. They chitter and dart through the trees. I covet a magnolia warbler for my list. The blue-gray gnatcatcher calls peevishly. I want to pack one with me for arguments with my mother. Why do we touch the electric fence to test if it is working? We do it with a certain kind of glance-sideways-to-see-if-anyone-is-watching glee. You may as well get yourself a beer and settle in to see the show. She accuses me of being snippy. I learned that from watching the warblers snip up ants and beetles from the fresh, spring-leafing trees. Crows are pecking at road-kill raccoon. They flap up into trees when disturbed, but they always return to worry the bones.
Cravings
In the beginning she ate snails and they were good. A bit slimy, but with garlic they filled her belly. Frogs were next and tasty. Toads had a certain odor that didn’t appeal, so she let them hop in the hollyhocks. When the fish came to the edge of the pond and began to talk to her she understood the magic, but he was so big and fine and his scales glowed with a rainbow of color. She was hungry. She had a craving. She scooped him up and swallowed him whole. Then she was full. Magic built in her. She shook rabbits from her hats and levitated the milk cows. Playing cards were all queens and aces. Silk scarves in myriad colors poured from her mouth. She conjured rainstorms and all of the farmers invited her to dinner. When she gave birth the baby had gills. The baptism was attended by many. They did not know the source of the river. They did not expect the swimming. That was an oversight that cost them rain, which cost them everything.
Another Geography
The palm reader died without answers. Wandering my hand lines alone I discover a thousand possible futures. It’s like a game of pick-up-sticks. When the archeologist sneaks up on me I startle, make a fist enclosing my heart. He wants to excavate the outhouse site; a hundred-year-old depression in the back yard. He is amazed no one has asked before. One line tells me there are not many like him. We all return to dirt, he tells me, but blue bottle glass remains intact. Soon there is a formation of artifacts across my porch. I have a new scar on the heel of my thumb. He kisses it to make it better, then leads me down a woodchuck hole to live close to the warm center of the earth where his heart line originates.
Art Information
- “Magnolia Warbler, Central Park” © Ed Gaillard; Creative Commons license
- “Identity” © David Bleasdale; Creative Commons license
Lisa J. Cihlar's poems have been published in The South Dakota Review, Green Mountains Review, In Posse Review, Bluestem, and The Prose-Poem Project. One of her poems was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her chapbook, The Insomniac’s House, is available from Dancing Girl Press and a second chapbook, This is How She Fails, is available from Crisis Chronicles Press. She lives in rural southern Wisconsin.
