Saint Julian Press

Elizabeth Cohen ~ Poet

 

A new poem by Elizabeth Cohen, published here for the first time on December 26, 2017. It is now one of the poems included in ​​​The Patron Saint of Cauliflower poetry collection.

WHEN I WAS A BIRD

 

I had the smallest bones
I could breaststroke on the smooth back of evening
I had no particular anger

Sometimes I made a meal of rain's leftover wheat
I found certain beetles enticing
I loved fish

There was a time when I sang 
to a smaller bird
for days

There was a time when 
I pierced the skin of a lake
and left mud tracks

on asphalt
I have written sung arias
to the coming end of summer

I let my shadow
follow other shadows
into the quicksand of night

I have slept with sandflies
and fallen down on the miracles
of road-killed mice

After, I evolved into a mongoose
the smallest springbok of a large herd
a wildebeest, a Talaud flying fox

but I never forgot my ancestry
of feather and flock
It was my best life of all, and my

most successful
I was married to air
and my hatchlings followed me

everywhere, until one day
they left to marry the wind 
themselves and became tree frogs

and pink fairy armadillos
and little girls
in India, with parasols

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elizabeth Cohen © 2017

 

 

BIRD LIGHT

 

ELIZABETH COHEN © 2016