Intercession
Cages stuffed with finches swung
in bunches at the shrine
on the jammed Bangkok street,
and on a bench below them
sat a girl, sunken-eyed, lap
crammed with jewels she put on
only when passersby would pay
to make her dance their prayer up
before the god. She shrank, lips
parted, panting, like the birds.
I had coins for one cage—
the scuffle, snapping bones,
the bursting out the door,
the lucky ones flung skyward.
But not enough for her.
Kristin Camitta Zimet is the Editor of The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review. Her poems are in the full-length collection Take in My Arms the Dark and in many anthologies and journals, including Lullwater Review, Poet Lore, and Crab Orchard Review. Once a city girl, she is a naturalist in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
qarrtsiluni 