hostage

red-tailed hawk, I unfurl

my Refrains,

flexing towards the bend in the shadow

crouched,

my beak

I grip, taste iron in my talons                  (trap set low)

my four offenses lining up the prey

ssshh              faint Repetitions threading through my vein,

 seven screams yet to violate

raw, I am

the single fault.

descent

third is the mime’s conversation,

longing for a sightline

to petals stacked in the closet

and the hush winding through small hands

that breathe for the second promise

of roaming through rips in the sky,

cradling the flush, the climb

out of the first wound, the desert, silent blast

the burnt field

the bowing light

we only denied

you for a year

our palms knew the lost hush

we curved our bodies into conversations

with desire and demise

we were a house

with sinking beams

set apart from the chosen

sparrow

before you screamed,

you flew

Cindy Savett is the author of Child in the Road (Parlor Press, 2007) and the chapbooks The Story of my Eyes (Dancing Girl Press, 2012),Battle for the Metal Kiss (H_ngm_n Books, 2011) and Rachel: In the Temporary Mist of Prayer (Big Game Books, 2007). Her poems can also be found in the anthology Challenges for the Delusional (Jane Street Press, 2012) and in LIT, Margie, Heliotrope, The Marlboro Review, 26 Magazine, Cutbank, and other print and online journals. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she lives with her family on the outskirts of Philadelphia, where she leads poetry groups for psychiatric inpatients at several area hospitals.

‘We Disturb The Air’ – an interview with Cindy Savett