The blink of an Eye
by Sue Fitchett
Our morning is tethered to many small things;
some have more weight than others:
bread for birds flung from branches
rags & dusters wing the punch-tender sky.
A slim book offers poems that stick
in the gut, needles & lilies.
There’s white everywhere:
rolls I bake for lunch
sea foam
within magazine pages
words swim for their lives.
My life might depend on this hummingbird
tongue at my rain jacket’s zip end
the light is damp, my hand slips
no mouth seems so minute, so like a mirage
frangible, splintering.
The phone’s leaden volley
an armed intruder, master thief steals all
our morning ties, your brother
falls in a park grass
rises to hold him
his eyes
two flesh-bound stars
blink out.
Cyclone Lusi passes over our city.
I open the front door meet her lash
see a tree broken.