Blackbirds by Christy Gualtieri
When a child is killed
all the nearby blackbirds
line telephone wires and
stare down until the people below
wish in their bones
it would be them, instead.
If a child is killed in winter,
it stays cold every day
for the rest of their mother's life.
The matchsticks she needs to keep warm
will remind her of her baby's legs
mangled in the wreckage -
tangled in the IV lines -
floating in the tub -
And when the sky spreads overhead,
pulled as tight as a sheet over a body,
the patterns of February branches
and the black of the birds' feathers
will cut into its clouds like lacerations on a face.
Christy Gualtieri's poems have been featured in Luciferous, Mad Swirl, and College English Notes. She lives with her husband and son in Pittsburgh, PA.
When a child is killed
all the nearby blackbirds
line telephone wires and
stare down until the people below
wish in their bones
it would be them, instead.
If a child is killed in winter,
it stays cold every day
for the rest of their mother's life.
The matchsticks she needs to keep warm
will remind her of her baby's legs
mangled in the wreckage -
tangled in the IV lines -
floating in the tub -
And when the sky spreads overhead,
pulled as tight as a sheet over a body,
the patterns of February branches
and the black of the birds' feathers
will cut into its clouds like lacerations on a face.
Christy Gualtieri's poems have been featured in Luciferous, Mad Swirl, and College English Notes. She lives with her husband and son in Pittsburgh, PA.
