I hope one day birds will rule the sky again


by Becca Glaser

Everyone suggests okcupid—
what we want from intimacy now.
Everywhere the airplanes—
their destinations and jet fuel,
I just want someone who will make crepes
with me on a Saturday morning,
love me raw and worried,
argue with me cuz conflict’s regular
as pine needles. What whorled shells
I hide in. Like the hermit crab
I take what is not being used.
Somewhere, acorns drop with definite thuds,
another granite skyscraper is erected,
a child grows without touch,
a man trades his body for drugs,
the politicians escape their crimes,
a soldier hangs herself.

Others say Get a Job, Go to College, Get a Trade—
bookkeeper, lawyer, or Marry Rich.
We are born when we are born.
We have to dance with it, and whether corsetted
by church, cocaine, career, or collards,
our lives are made from scratch—
from the body, where the os opens
or the belly is sliced, we are born at that
time and place where the stars are aligned,
new toes, new nose.
Maybe I wanted too much out of life,
maybe I should have been more grateful, less sure.

Sometimes I’d be satisfied just to sit
at the Chinese restaurant stuffing
my face and not apologizing.