After a trans reading of Dickinson’s I dreaded that first robin so



I did not attend the robin’s arrival, weary of

its frantic threshing as we both resisted

capture. The fusion of seasons agitated the both of us, and

each negotiated hiding place landmarked

new growing pains – side, chest, throat, wing.
I found myself holding out against an oncoming wind,

epidermal armour poorly matched against a creature born to fly.

For the first time, a dissonant note played out and I allowed myself to be haunted.

Go, the robin pled. I am at sea, and all wrong.
In spring, I begin to ruminate dressings of skin and silk. How can the flowers

know their wake and rest so easily?

I intuit I am also from the sky and soil, shaped by the tides.

Faith governs me, but even so I am struck by it, the dry-mouthed urge

to tip gently, and then decidedly, against the knife.
I lose sight of the robin amongst the looming reeds. Chase me,

he calls. The wind rushes, behind us now and buffeting with a steady intention.

My companion trails amulets to apply and whittle with. Milky eyes loom

out of the muck, warning of my serene and frenetic exposure.
I avert their gaze, and quietly pray to forget. A message

dribbles through the brush cover – foreign letters play undergrowth games

while I spurn the herald’s mirrors.

How will I know him then?
I have boldly supposed to outrun a drowning, stutter then

notice my futures are awash in gloam.

The flowers urge me into sorrow, I won’t I won’t, on my spittle

until the robin’s return.
The chord cradled in sour pitch crawls through the air again,

ripped from recalled windows into episodic infancy.

I begin to author the memories, witness the garnet plume burst into flame alight

against the thrum of history.