The chicks, young in their throats, are so certain of love they are silent.
Then mother returns and life is all cheep and worm.
Travel far enough into silence and time becomes a circle.
Next year, the birds will return to the same wooden box,
and I will say hello. Humans speak because they can;
birds speak because they know silence.
What you call God I call beloved. I am sudsing dishes
at the sink, waiting for the mama bluebird.
What has returned to me and given me love from its mouth?
I look out the window, in the tiny spheres in my hand.
This poem first appeared in Temporary Beast (2024).
—
Joanna Solfrian is the author of the poetry collections Temporary Beast, The Second Perfect Number, The Mud Room, and Visible Heavens, which was chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye for the Wick First Book Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in The Harvard Review, Boulevard, Rattle, Margie, The Southern Review, Salamander, Pleiades, Image, and elsewhere. She is a MacDowell Fellow and a five-time Pushcart nominee. Joanna lives and works in New York City. www.joannasolfrian.com
