dearest lockbox
it’s almost time for the melons to arrive you know the kind rind tough and
forbidding
you are
forced to slice open into halves
this one asks you to scrape away seeds to cut orange flesh into fine crescents with its
rind
still connected to pull the meat away with your teeth
there is a great community of birds here
so common the drip-drop bluejay
cardinal & starling
who you watch is mocking bird
he steals seedlings he of the throat-jump
clings to tree trunk
wings beat he attacks between grassblades the he of ferocity
hunger & madness woe to the earthworm unsafe
even hidden woe to the earth to the grass
you watch because he asks you watch
he never sings he warns he
watches one brown dove leave her nest
Natalie Harris
Copyright © 2006
NATALIE HARRIS lives, writes, and walks across the street to
work in Florence, MA. She received her MFA in Creating Writing from
Bennington in 2003 and would like to thank the editors of DMQ for ending her
slumber at the wheel.
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