Ashley Roach-Freiman
Starlings
lying on the bed i hear you.
a nimbus of birds:
a swoop of carry,
a stomach drop,
each wing a rib i’ve plucked
to suffer my heart, my heart
a toothache, each feather
a lover i’ve denied.
what does it mean to love the murmuration
that rips the gray envelope of sky?
starlings, your airplane message
i hear i hear i hear:
you’re good with a knife, you’re good with snow
you’re good with a lightning rod.
i bring you, birds, red winter skin,
red appetite, raw apples and hard beets.
good with loneliness, good with cats,
good with a bucket and a mop.
i bring you, birds, coffee cups but also
a vetiver of wildness and fur.
you can’t have secrets, you can’t have lovers
you can’t shave of your skin.
i bring you, birds, an open mouth:
red bird offerings, a worm
of pink tongue singing,
and teeth teeth teeth.
Ashley Roach-Freiman is a second year MFA student at the University of Memphis, where she is Poetry Editor for the Pinch Journal. She has poems appearing or forthcoming in the Dunes Review and Midway Journal and this summer was a grateful participant of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. She coordinates the Impossible Language reading series in Memphis, TN.
Return to September 2014 Edition
lying on the bed i hear you.
a nimbus of birds:
a swoop of carry,
a stomach drop,
each wing a rib i’ve plucked
to suffer my heart, my heart
a toothache, each feather
a lover i’ve denied.
what does it mean to love the murmuration
that rips the gray envelope of sky?
starlings, your airplane message
i hear i hear i hear:
you’re good with a knife, you’re good with snow
you’re good with a lightning rod.
i bring you, birds, red winter skin,
red appetite, raw apples and hard beets.
good with loneliness, good with cats,
good with a bucket and a mop.
i bring you, birds, coffee cups but also
a vetiver of wildness and fur.
you can’t have secrets, you can’t have lovers
you can’t shave of your skin.
i bring you, birds, an open mouth:
red bird offerings, a worm
of pink tongue singing,
and teeth teeth teeth.
Ashley Roach-Freiman is a second year MFA student at the University of Memphis, where she is Poetry Editor for the Pinch Journal. She has poems appearing or forthcoming in the Dunes Review and Midway Journal and this summer was a grateful participant of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. She coordinates the Impossible Language reading series in Memphis, TN.
Return to September 2014 Edition