1. In the meantime I will leave it here, in the skin beneath my shoulder blades
2. This is the definition we never learned of Dove. How frangible light of battle
for keeping, which later you extract with tweezers, it having lodged deep in a vein
field and forest entangles when it drops through the wings of dove
rough with blood. When it emerges newborn wet you can sing it—
as mammal as roar as wearing the face of a gargoyle or sphinx—sing it—
the meaning of Dove. It will knot the ends of your hair; it will peck at your palms;
if you can, sing it to the west where waters will rise
it will make you wish you’d left it longer beneath the skin. It is why
It sounds true if it is sung with a hint of blood in the throat—
my father will shoot out the eyes of pigeons; why they land in the rubber
was it really the eyes of a woman my father… and a child held to her
band and pebble roll cries of raven and crow; it is why my mother sews her
breast as she leapt. My mother found this song too late to save her sight her
fingers to altar cloth instead of bed sheets.
fingertips pressing coral knots into cloth like braille.