The three-legged wooden table
bore a feast breathed in the fumes
of the world’s oven.
Eat up, eat up. Crack the wishbone.
More chicken cluck in the yards,
asking for our daily inattentions,
scooting off through the richness of the day.
Is there gold you want, little birdies?
We sigh to slow the heart
and watch the moon live up to its name.
Too much time spent waiting. Mothy touches
dreaming of our rough men
gone too soon.
Our tongues were once flame
that purged, soothed, invented
languages to keep them tame.
We now laminate loss,
skins like dropped rope.
All around, there is unremitting flesh,
ill from the pieces given away.
Inside the bones, grief calcified
decades ago.
So be merry, birdies, be bold.
Eat up, eat up.
At childhood’s end, you come panting beasts,
Sparing no dream, daggers for eyes.
Author Bio:
Clara Burghelea is Editor-at-Large for Village of Crickets blog, called Small Points of Light.
She is a Scott James and Jerry Cain Creative Writing and Social Media Fellow from Romania, working on a multi-genre MFA at Adelphi University. A poet and translator, she published in print and online, including in In-Flight Literary Magazine, Straylight Literary Magazine, Indiana Voice Journal, The Galway Review, Peacock Journal and Ambit Magazine.
bore a feast breathed in the fumes
of the world’s oven.
Eat up, eat up. Crack the wishbone.
More chicken cluck in the yards,
asking for our daily inattentions,
scooting off through the richness of the day.
Is there gold you want, little birdies?
We sigh to slow the heart
and watch the moon live up to its name.
Too much time spent waiting. Mothy touches
dreaming of our rough men
gone too soon.
Our tongues were once flame
that purged, soothed, invented
languages to keep them tame.
We now laminate loss,
skins like dropped rope.
All around, there is unremitting flesh,
ill from the pieces given away.
Inside the bones, grief calcified
decades ago.
So be merry, birdies, be bold.
Eat up, eat up.
At childhood’s end, you come panting beasts,
Sparing no dream, daggers for eyes.
Author Bio:
Clara Burghelea is Editor-at-Large for Village of Crickets blog, called Small Points of Light.
She is a Scott James and Jerry Cain Creative Writing and Social Media Fellow from Romania, working on a multi-genre MFA at Adelphi University. A poet and translator, she published in print and online, including in In-Flight Literary Magazine, Straylight Literary Magazine, Indiana Voice Journal, The Galway Review, Peacock Journal and Ambit Magazine.
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