Phoebe Reeves
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I Show You the Lilacs I Stole
Cut too early,
but the bushes they grew from
still hold their roots to the ground.
These buds are so male: sleek
and sealed. Blooming, they are
female in their long passages.
The fluid guises of reproduction,
you and I moving between our bodies.
Opening and closing.
The family
cowers under an orange
bolted formica table. A young
man pulls his gun.
Louder than the retort
mourning doves’ bodies call
out upon the plate glass.
The delicate imprint of feathers,
bullet spidering the pane.
The next day the pizzeria’s
owner rebuilds with duct
tape and corrugated cardboard.
The anger. The way it can live
inside, inside with their guns.
How much simpler to
accede, to open up—
to be the one
crouched beneath
that table. The bird’s atoms
pressing into flat lines. The boy
bleeding out on the restaurant floor.
What kind of migration
Used to be, I could run barefoot.
Pines hushed my feet over fox
holes and scattered feathers.
Now, felled by window
panes alone, birds fall break-
neck onto cement.
Death comes
cleaner in the teeth of tall pines
than this windexed invisibility.
Headlong inconceivability and
surprise only. See how they still
watch for death even after it passes.
Cut too early,
but the bushes they grew from
still hold their roots to the ground.
These buds are so male: sleek
and sealed. Blooming, they are
female in their long passages.
The fluid guises of reproduction,
you and I moving between our bodies.
Opening and closing.
The family
cowers under an orange
bolted formica table. A young
man pulls his gun.
Louder than the retort
mourning doves’ bodies call
out upon the plate glass.
The delicate imprint of feathers,
bullet spidering the pane.
The next day the pizzeria’s
owner rebuilds with duct
tape and corrugated cardboard.
The anger. The way it can live
inside, inside with their guns.
How much simpler to
accede, to open up—
to be the one
crouched beneath
that table. The bird’s atoms
pressing into flat lines. The boy
bleeding out on the restaurant floor.
What kind of migration
Used to be, I could run barefoot.
Pines hushed my feet over fox
holes and scattered feathers.
Now, felled by window
panes alone, birds fall break-
neck onto cement.
Death comes
cleaner in the teeth of tall pines
than this windexed invisibility.
Headlong inconceivability and
surprise only. See how they still
watch for death even after it passes.
Phoebe Reeves teaches English
at the University of
Cincinnati’s Clermont
College. She earned her MFA
in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence
College. Her poems have
recently appeared in Glass,
Harpur Palate, PoetLore, and
The Potomac Review. She lives
in Clifton, OH with her
husband Don and their cat,
Nietzsche.
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