Sparrow
*
Black arrow, darting.
Feather and fulcrum,
crux of wingspan.
Upon the white
scaffold of winter,
your negative flares
as cameras shutter
and flash.
*
Black darling, sparrow.
Skeletal map of frailty.
Silk-boned roadmap
to a pea-stone heart.
Between a newborn
forefinger and thumb
you would succumb
to the faintest grip.
*
And there are no maps
to track this flight.
No sketches to trek,
no spots to x.
Instinct, then.
Intuition, if we trust it.
*
Birdbrains, we
use so little and
waste so much.
You see, we like
to fire into dark.
We like to match
points, strike
to even scores.
Birdbrains, we
are stars
preposterously
blinking.
We burn
even though
we've gone out.
Alicia Hoffman lives, writes and teaches in Rochester, New York. An MFA candidate at the Rainier Writer's Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University, her recent poems have appeared in Tar River Poetry, Camroc Press Review, A-Minor Magazine, Softblow, Stone Highway Review, and elsewhere. Her first poetry collection, Like Stardust in the Peat Moss, is due out from Aldrich Press in January of 2014.
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