-After the surrealist painting by Leonora Carrington People were always getting my name wrong. Wife instead of widow, glass instead of window. Before I was Mrs. Partridge, I was a homing pigeon, a wild rock dove bred to always find my way home. Home was any wide nest, deep and warm. I never wanted to get married, but here I am calling myself hen where my heart should be. Not my children but my hands holding a nest. It was my husband who trained me, took me miles from home, left me to find my way back. Anyone who tells you they mated for life, sings a truer song when they call Death, death. What can you do if a bird grows from your body but wear it as a great midnight life preserver, a blue feathered buoy holding you aloft? This is the mystery of house and home, of want and need. As the bird caging my ribs evolved, my body lengthened. I fed my children with ragged beak, slept while they tried to fly. Not grey wings, but a red dress. Not fistfuls of hair, but sheaves of dry grass and sticks, a fledgling dressed for flight. When your chest cracks to reveal a mourning dove, what can you do but love your hollow bones, hide the shell of home beneath your wings.
Jill Crammons’ poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Slipstream, Limp Wrist, Tinderbox Poetry, Mom Egg Review, Pidgeonholes, Unbroken Journal, Mother Mary Come to Me Anthology, Fiolet & Wing: An Anthology of Domestic Fabulist Poetry, and others. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her chapbook, Handbook for Unwell Mothers, was a finalist for the 2021 Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize, judged by Victoria Chang. She lives and teaches art and preschool at a forest school in upstate NY.
**We do our best to preserve the integrity of each poem; however, due to programming limitations, some poems may read differently on a mobile phone and in certain browsers. For best viewing, use Chrome on a desktop/laptop.