Fledgling
Carrying a wicker basket
full of kudzu and buttercups,
molten drops of sun and forest,
I trudge through pavement,
when a sound seizes
my ears like honeycomb-
sapped fruit flies.
Croaking melodies into air.
Wings like wet paper soaked
in sun-baked leaves, void eyes
staring up at me blankly.
Twig legs splayed like baby
doe, awaiting mother.
So paltry, I could cup my hands
around it like a teapot.
So sanguine, I almost spot
a tiny golden heart,
twinkling through feathers.
Those saucer eyes.
Those birchwood limbs.
I will wait, sitting
on the cracked asphalt,
ears attentive.
But, silver clouds exhale,
trees churning in their grasp.
A storm rolling, oozing
grey into soft purple.
I must make my way
back home.
My ears take one, final look.
Croaking requiems into air.
Ode to Internalized Paint
Distempered the carcass among these walls--
emulsed to papered coats of pink and teal, eggshell
relics, encrusted colors that I painted over.
Between those sheets is another dead notion.
This layer is pink, antediluvian (before the flood)
I’m wearing paisley dresses to school, a bow-gibbous,
bejeweled, inhaling some sweetmeats on monkey bars.
And it reminds me of bliss.
The second skin was teal. It came in siroccos
of itchy jeans and sinew curtains choking barbie-
girl heads. Blues smothers the fire of pink girls.
An eidolon brush eats at my hand now.
Eggshelled shame. I’m tittering on them.
My walls, they whisper, accusatory: Internalized paint.
Carrying a wicker basket
full of kudzu and buttercups,
molten drops of sun and forest,
I trudge through pavement,
when a sound seizes
my ears like honeycomb-
sapped fruit flies.
Croaking melodies into air.
Wings like wet paper soaked
in sun-baked leaves, void eyes
staring up at me blankly.
Twig legs splayed like baby
doe, awaiting mother.
So paltry, I could cup my hands
around it like a teapot.
So sanguine, I almost spot
a tiny golden heart,
twinkling through feathers.
Those saucer eyes.
Those birchwood limbs.
I will wait, sitting
on the cracked asphalt,
ears attentive.
But, silver clouds exhale,
trees churning in their grasp.
A storm rolling, oozing
grey into soft purple.
I must make my way
back home.
My ears take one, final look.
Croaking requiems into air.
Ode to Internalized Paint
Distempered the carcass among these walls--
emulsed to papered coats of pink and teal, eggshell
relics, encrusted colors that I painted over.
Between those sheets is another dead notion.
This layer is pink, antediluvian (before the flood)
I’m wearing paisley dresses to school, a bow-gibbous,
bejeweled, inhaling some sweetmeats on monkey bars.
And it reminds me of bliss.
The second skin was teal. It came in siroccos
of itchy jeans and sinew curtains choking barbie-
girl heads. Blues smothers the fire of pink girls.
An eidolon brush eats at my hand now.
Eggshelled shame. I’m tittering on them.
My walls, they whisper, accusatory: Internalized paint.
Rosalie McCracken is a poet from Clemson, South Carolina. Outside of writing, you will find her reading, drawing, rock-hunting in local rivers, and playing Dungeons and Dragons with friends.