Wild Turkeys

Mount Auburn cemetery

Mossed path through rhododendrons tall as trees,
and here come the hens, burnished legs slow-stepping,
eight, nine, ten copper bodies like Aladdin’s lamps

bobbing, strolling between monuments,
arching from sheen to ruffle, pausing to pluck at matted grass.
I didn’t expect so many. A silent stream, unhurried,

noticing me and not-noticing, stone, stone,
person, stone, under the pines. And then
the toms: green-gold, black-gold, chestnut, twice

as large, following behind. Strange black beards
sprout like fountains from their breasts. I didn’t expect
this long passing, eighteen, nineteen, parting around me like a sea

while I watch beside carved marble.
Their folded wings are white slopes scribbled with dark,
runes I cannot read.

Thirteen

Summer after the divorce

Flushed with ninth-grade hurry, she bounds up
the attic stairs she and her brother share.
Hot smell of wood. The red runner fraying.
She doesn’t know yet that she loves her brother;
she knows she loves her parents, though to say so
makes her weep. But there’s nothing to say;
her friend is pounding up behind her, lithe,
quick, tall, one grade ahead, blond braid bouncing
on her shoulders. There’s something in this friend
she yearns for and defers to. The brass knob
presses its smooth dome against her palm.
Behind the door, gold light will spill in squares
across the unfinished floor, and catch the dust
like diamonds. There’s something she almost worships,
beyond age, grace, blondness. Downstairs she hears
her mother crying on the phone. The grainy
radio. Waiting for her friend to turn
the landing she thinks There isn’t enough
gladness here ever to feel proud
of this house. This life, this family.
She pushes the door in. The cat leaps down
to rub around her ankles. She begins
to be afraid there’s nothing, really, between
herself and joy, but this constant longing.

June 3, 2025