SET FREE

My father           knew doves
were a clenched fist
under veil.
My mother kept           their bodies
like two rings,
the birds quiet.

My favorite song
was skittish.       A goodnight
instead of star. The universe

pecked red          and my father
set them free.

When I found their wings
like a jaw
a smudge of black           sunrise
feathers gone    and the thick

stick of blood   missing from
their devoted bodies.

HOOKED LACE

I was always in the good car with my mother, the one
unable to be kept at the plant because of knives

in tires and cigarettes left lit on paint.
She hated the Z-28. She wanted four doors, not two

after a hard rain she hit every puddle and pothole.
Each splash, pasted and caked, left to dry

overnight like a sin. My mother collected Queen
Anne’s Lace, tall crowns masquerading as weeds

the cluster of petals small as a flea
like gnats accidentally inhaled —

a universe to another creature. Birds are not
safe until they fledge and learn

to distinguish between hemlock and carrot. Simple
as a seed taken for seven days to stop an egg from embedding.

LUXURY

I know I am not supposed to like it,
alone at the table, peeling the chicken
skin off, and into my mouth. The crisp
salt, sting of hot sauce
stuck to fingers, and I am eating
the prettiest piece first. I served no one
and ate entirely with my hands.
The puff and split of rice browned
in oil with onion and garlic. The sloppiness
of a hand crushed tomato, a jigsaw
of sweet and acidic. The perfume of cilantro,
no doubt stuck in my teeth and flesh of chicken
spurred to greatness with a rub of comino.
The tortilla torn apart, breathing
because its perfect edge was singed by fire.
The rinse and spin of digestion, a splash more
wine to soften when I think I am
a dandelion blown apart
curved like the bill of a hummingbird
and thigh. My heart is never still,
bloomed, outstretched, and
foolish. When I squeeze a cut
lemon, I close my eyes. Robins
can’t be captive, they die
within moments of human contact.
I’d rather let them fly
next to the orange butterflies, and
shake the dull sepia feathers
located on the belly, which are slightly
brighter on men.

WHAT GENERAL MOTORS DOESN’T PROTECT

I drive in wide circles, the click
of my steering is a card hitting a spoke

my father tilts his head,
all sound

is interruption.
The engine amplified

when played back from a brick wall.

My father worked
in a landscape

of machines lit by spark.
Sheared metal matches

seven days a week.
A meteor shower

too close to earth.

The wooden dowel he presses
against his ear, the other
end to the engine.

In bright sun my father
focuses on the maple,
tell me when the cicadas start singing.

ENGINE BLOCK (EXPLODED VIEW)

1.      Patternmaking

The owl doesn’t talk about the distance between him and Lake Michigan,
he tries to remove the coal ash from his ear tufts.

2.      Coremaking

They rotate. As one owl is dragged out, another is brought in.
Do you think owls are afraid of water?

3.      Molding

The owl thinks he hears Lake Michigan when he pours the melted metal in the core.
Lake Michigan is iron gray; where is the sun in all this steel?

4.      Melting and Pouring

His feathers, sticky corn silk. Did the shakeout make a vibration, a wave burning sand.
The foreman doesn’t stop counting.

5.      Cleaning

Not even the owl can see in the dark. A rogue wave buries a freighter.
After twelve hours he forgets light, he forgets water.

SECOND SHIFT

A thunder through the chest.

All metal and two hundred pigeons
cannot cover the fire
from rafter to machine.

The heat crawls under
hard hat

a slap of summer
so heavy

it is an engine.

The carbon in nodular iron
rings like crystal

along my father’s collar.

He pretends his sleeves are waves,
not the stiff denim
my mother irons, buttons,

and hangs. The delicate stitch
of my father’s hand removed

the white thread along the edge
of a pocket to make room
for his mechanical pencil.
I don’t know

if I will inherit

his shirt. After repeated
washing, it fades into a phantom

blue, like the eyes of my husband

who’s shirts have never been
stretched out like a wing

held and seared with metal

THE OWLS OF SAGINAW

When my grandfather caught
the long hair of women
preened in the attic
of his wings

with a layer of vaseline under
their lipstick kisses
a line of dewy
red tulips,
the only
evidence
of his hunt.

One, two, three.
He knew his
sons recognized
how cold
the moon was,
silk against skin. He has always

fed himself

never saying a word
about all those
yellow eyes, flashlights
who mimic him
and believe in prey
by sight.

RESURRECTION OF PREY

How the owl    drags
her body slack and she offers      her head.
What he spilts               with his bill
are soft petals.
Her ear’s soft petal,
conscious         of the snap.
Don’t worry,
the counter       is clean.
Her neck,

wrapped and placed      back in her body.

Head missing,
the heart            and liver          beside a candle
not death, but           a blessing.

When she counts           to five,           he will
fold his napkin.
Bone, silver,
and hair.           She is an earring
and molar.           One pendant of
our Lady of Guadalupe.

A little water   and the plucked
heads of geraniums                   wash her thighs,
she will save the trusses

blanched in her sweat
and leave sticky prints           on his table.
He           doesn’t like to be reminded of her,
this early in the morning.

There is nothing           he can’t catch
and undress.     Catch and undo,           his silent flight.