Hole in the Center, and: They Mend the Eave Outside My Office, Accidentally Trap a Starling

Abstract

Hole in the Center, and: They Mend the Eave Outside My Office, Accidentally Trap a Starling Celisa Steele (bio) Hole in the Center I’m in the kitchen washing breakfast dishes before the house cleaners come.A thousand miles away, the dopamine in my father’s brain is drying up. A month ago, we loitered on the beach. Dusk. My kids playing in the sand,sharing the red plastic shovel they’d found half-buried. A gray Wrangler drives near the surf, stops twenty yards away.A man’s arm frisbees square slices of white bread out the window. The Jeep gone, Dad waves his arms, scatters the shrieking gulls,gathers the bread. Explains You aren’t supposed to feed them. The kids keep digging,the hole getting deeper. Dad looks down, discovers the squashed bread in his hands.Says Come on—let’s go feed the birds. The tide is running outthe beach wide and empty I dry the last mug and place it in the cupboard.Once, the house cleaners emptied the dishwasher. I spent half an hour tracking down the kids’ favorite cups,the pasta spoon, putting things back how they’re supposed to be. [End Page 93] They Mend the Eave Outside My Office, Accidentally Trap a Starling She shudders behind sheetrock,muffled wings in the wall.Frenzied fit, then stillfor whole hours untilthe next burst of beatingquickens the dark emptiness. And I’m relieved no witness,no young, not hers, not mine,is with me to heardrawn-out death and fearor the whisper of prayerssaid only to speed the clock. [End Page 94] Celisa Steele Celisa Steele’s poetry has appeared in Cave Wall, Tar River Poetry, Raleigh Review, Poetry South, and others. She lives in Carrboro, North Carolina, where she served as the town’s poet laureate from 2013 to 2016. Copyright © 2019 University of Nebraska Press