David B. Prather
I've been listening lately
to bird calls. I download their songs
to try to distinguish inflections and phrases
of chirp and scree. Songbirds wake me
in the blue air of morning. They announce
their joys in a jumble, and I am unable
to discern one from another. I’ve heard
the yellow-headed blackbird’s call
is a rusty hinge, the kind that gives away
the stranger entering the gate. He wears
a cowl to mimic sunrise. His fancy
white epaulets show only when he stretches
his wings. How can this rasp and chafe
be considered a song? What would it take
to soothe such a voice?
Before my grandfather died, his breath
became a calling. He could have been
standing in a marsh with rays of sun
draped over his head and bunched
around his shoulders. Think of those
unknown soloists, their refrains,
the scrape of that rusty gate.
Fortune Teller
He tells me I will overflow
with sadness, a month of sorrows
that floods the heart. It spills out
unprovoked. He keeps turning over cards,
counting them off like pills—one
for sleep, one for melancholy,
one for uncertainty. Then, he stares
into a crystal ball and says I will need
to readjust. I will need to watch
sunlight feather through conifers.
I will need to mask myself with wellness
before I can leave convalescence,
gather my thoughts before they scatter
into snowy fields, hide in the shadows
of leafless trees. He reads my palm,
proclaims my heartline is broken,
my lifeline long and jagged. Sleep,
he whispers, will be a moth at my window.
And when I ask what he means,
he assures me I must drink the tea
before he can read the leaves.
David B. Prather is the author of We Were Birds (Main Street Rag Publishing, 2019), and he has two forthcoming poetry collections: Bending Light with Bare Hands (Fernwood Press) and Shouting at an Empty House (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions). His work has appeared in many journals, including Prairie Schooner, The Comstock Review, The Literary Review, etc. He lives in Parkersburg, WV.