Starlings
       

The most beautiful clothes: iridescent black
over Snarl Call. I wore the soft Sparrow

to the store, borrowed the Crow to bag food;
the Chickadee to the masquerade, the Vulture to the show,

wore my silhouette more raw-necked
and veined. Stare: it's hard

to think of me as the citizen of a star;
I'm no jet-sharp Swallow, no Bluebird's rare,

rosy décolletage, no white breasts
sterling the light, no Swan. I wear the soft gray hat

of the Junco pulled down. But I can,

in Starling, gloss more than one thing:
employee of my own oiled-silk finish,

purple-green trasher of your silence,
reflector and sharp-beaked shredder of

your most gorgeous and boring murmuration:
mine mine mine mine.

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Copyright © 2016 Karen Leona Anderson All rights reserved
from Receipt
Milkweed Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission