how did you come to poetry?

Some stuff by Amy

Louisville, KY


A few weeks ago, a bird died on the sidewalk. I don't know who killed her,
but I pass by every day and it's an above-the-ground grave, an open casket that nobody stops for.
At first her body is majestic,
rots but doesn't show it and she inspires side-step,
but after a week nobody clears her away,
and her wingless sinew inches toward the grass
to beg for an empty bed.

There should have been sirens when she was found,
airplanes and insects and all old winged lovers of hers
should have gathered, refusing to leave,
even though she's in too many pieces to detect a body
and she probably doesn't look how she used to.
Letting fewer and fewer things remind me of me and you
is how I'll let go--
when my sheets are a necessity and not anything we laid under,
when I don't picture you as handsome, only as a man,
I'll let you visit again.

I serve this bird by sending her invisible love letters,
by letting her body disappear
while praying that the last feather stays stuck to the ground
by way of fluids that escape from severed limbs
and latch onto whatever they touch.
You tossed me into bed but by then,
I wasn't listening to my breathing,
so I didn't know I'd grown extra lungs and an extra tongue,
both would have disgusted you and sent you away.
My windows were open and we could see the dirty part of the city,
but with you there
its gaping mouth and rusty teeth were only hungry.
I probably won't ever go back to Kentucky,
are you made of anything that flies north of there?



Centralia, IL


The hot air balloons in the back of my head
were risen like an Amish barn by the
stooped townspeople of small, southern Illinois,
all silent and exploding.
Their hot-handed sweat rubbed dirt into my eyes while
Angela refused to shake the springy brown axes hanging from her head out of her face.
She knew it wouldn't make a difference, they'd hate her anyway, the people--
she got to leave at the end of the night,
all they got to do was go home.

She--her sweat, her kinsmen--the children,
will drive their golden mini-van to the next town over until everyone can have their own clean bed,
while they, steadfast to the matted grass,
won't surrender the balloon pumped with flames and still stationary,
and all try to say never mind when the last lemon shake-up is sold.

They pack their trucks to lie down like dogs,
but I never smell blood how a bloodhound does,
the villagers' senses rendered as useless as mine--
we see dozens of white-hot checkered balloons and only want to keep them.
Feel wind electric from an escaped airplane and had until then forgotten the sky.