Carolina Parakeet, and: Lakeside, and: The White Moth, and: Touch Me Not

Abstract

Carolina Parakeet, and: Lakeside, and: The White Moth, and: Touch Me Not Emry Trantham (bio) CAROLINA PARAKEET What I must know is this: whyhaven't you yet written the elegy of the Carolina Parakeet? Youwho call winged spirits words, whose cells ache with each notelost. You who dream of healing the broken bones of a South stillon her knees; you who hum the melody of flitting shadowsdrifting across your page. Perhaps you've scrawledthe piece and shut it in some drawer with a useless keyhole,or folded it between pages of a book you can no longer bearto open. Yesterday, I knew you wrote the bird so well her ghostlifted from your pen, flew through your bedroom window and intothe wood, where she hovered [End Page 92] until she found her mate. Lackingyour answer, or rather, lacking a means to ask you the question,I will do this: close my eyes. Watch the yellow-green flock swell upover our mountains until I can't begin to name their number. Then,right hand clutching perfect pen, I will open to a new-blank page,swallow a lungful of extinction, and write the poem myself. [End Page 93] LAKESIDE Look upon a wind-worn water,its smooth light stubbledby summer storm— you have lost the trees, the sky,the pale eye of the sunto quiver and wave, flummox and flow,and become drowsyin the new tumult of surface. To be drawn to the downydodge of peak, dip, peakis to rest until the weather rests,which it will.The wind will lay. Rings of ripple will surrenderin stretch; the sun will opento glint the liquid mica, gone still, clear, mirroredenough to give you backa truth you meant to sink forever in the depths.And what now?You may choose [End Page 94] to leap, to leave—to fall to your kneesand pray for rain. [End Page 95] THE WHITE MOTH She is in repose when I find her,white wings stretched against the wet concrete of the road. I pick her up and hope for a moment—I might detect a liftof wing or curl of antenna, but the moth is still. On one finger I lift her to my eyes, work over the fuzz of her bodywith my gaze, and within three of my own heartbeats, declare her dead. I won't know the cause of death—she looks intact, bridalwhite and lovely. I lower her near my lips and exhale, as if to remind her what wings do with wind. I can't return life to frail limbs.What does one do with a piece of perfect death? I carry her inside and close her in a jar. [End Page 96] TOUCH ME NOT I can't help but rebelagainst such spindly demand,though I suspect there's moreto my affection than contrariness.Take, for example, the orange buds,sparked fires pulling my pulse to their warmth,or the curling green limbs fillingall the space I ask of them. But the pods—oh, the pods—growing full as summer lingers,begging me to pinch thembetween forefinger and thumb, to squeezeever so lightly until they burstagainst my palm, seeds spun to the shadeof the forest floor. Perhaps it's the waythat in every language I love,the thick green beckons—touch me. [End Page 97] Emry Trantham Emry Trantham is an English teacher in Western North Carolina, where she is raising three daughters and writing poems. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Tar River Poetry, The Adirondack Review, Noble Gas Qtrly, Cider Press Review, and other publications. She is also a 2019 Gilbert-Chappell Emerging Poet. Copyright © 2020 Berea College