Alessandra LynchBirthday
Some of the wishes were scared of the dark and pink and blue and the planet at large. Some had tender feet, slightly barbed by paper clips and wire, picked guitars and a violin's absent strings, lost parades of forks and knives. Most of the wishes couldn't last, distracted by things of the world and the world tugging them to fulfill breathy desire. So, they winged it, away from ribbons and balloons, spinning into the sky like oak-leaf copters, like bright little wing-bones of ants, while the candles they'd left sputtered and sank, and the ghostly flames staggered, flagged and paused in the wake: Upon a bucket of rose-skulls Upon the moon's lonely talon Upon the dying man tugged back to life Upon the dead man strolling into the room Upon a silver-horned bicycle and a whirring hat Upon a bell for a dove Upon the end of fog the sage fields rising Upon the hook-winged crow wheeling its blackness Upon city-smoke confounded by the clarity of twig and feather Upon yellow ribbon Against yellow stars The wishes were not all sublime--some cantankerous-- dirty and grim, sad, and many sweeping by lost from the original mouth and mind that pushed them into the air. For years I stood watching them while behind me my house burned and my land and the forests beyond.
Alessandra Lynch's first collection of poetry, Sails the Wind Left Behind, was published by Alice James Books in 2002. She teaches Creative Writing and Poetry at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown and lives near rivers, mountains, and a train.
