qarrtsiluni

by Barbara Young

the blackbird said
it was dark inside
and smelled of fire and lard
too tightly packed to move
they pretended it was night
inside the casket of crust
the knife that freed them passed
between two feathers of his wing
and damaged one barb
there was noise then
brightness and confusion
I asked him did you sing
we escaped, he said
we did not sing

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Barbara Young was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1947. She writes, “I wrote poetry in high school and college, but quit because I had nothing to say. Tried writing a novel in a month. But did not finish. Five times. Which must make me an optimist, if one with a short attention span. Last April I tried a poem-a-day challenge, and decided that having nothing to say can be liberating.”