Jackie Sherbow
Sometimes I think I’d
say anything. Sometimes I ask
for silence in small thoughts
like rosary beads, counting
one two three four five six
Even my own body
would thank me, my vocal
cords covered in knots,
my day-after brain, and
that dark, oily bird.
The accusers
in Salem saw birds everywhere:
in the meeting-house
in the woods
human women turning to birds
human women and sometimes
men holding birds, yellow birds
controlling them. Mine
is uncontrollable,
even with awareness of it
pressing itself against the inside
of my body where at least
I can keep it warm.
***
Jackie Sherbow is a writer and editor living in New York. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Okay Donkey, Moonchild Magazine, Bad Pony, Luna Luna, Day One, The Opiate, and elsewhere, and have been part of the Emotive Fruition performance series. She works as an editor for two leading mystery-fiction magazines as well as Newtown Literary, the literary journal dedicated to the borough of Queens, NY.