grief is the thing with feathers - max porter

the swallows swam that evening as they
so often had the summer through, pricking 
the bruised peach sky with their infinite
spots, spits, peppering the sky with noise.
but they bled on your brain, everything bled 
and passed through the grief lens, 
the sickening beige of it all.

the siren that screamed at three o'clock did
not save lives. it did not allow women and children
to huddle in the cellar of a kindly neighbour,
listening to the artillery wreck and raise the homes
of those christened with war. nor did it allow a father,
a mother, a screaming child to run blind panic through
their home, desperate to escape the burning skeleton of
their lives.

the siren was a red shoe, a red shoe that pricked and 
pecked at the corner of your eye, a sinkhole growing,
a heart that skips a beat, your stomach a thing of the past,
to be looked on by gawping, elsewhere teenagers decades from
now as a teacher tries desperately to tell them that this, this 
shrivelled husk was once the stomach of a woman who sat down,
just for a moment, just to check the fucking bills, to see what
she might be able to pay.

the siren was a red shoe, that screamed at three o'clock. 
a red shoe that became a brown leg, obscene and grimy. how
had it gotten so grimy, why had no one cleaned the pool, why
had no one cleaned the pool and why, children should be able to 
play outside for just a second while a woman, an exhausted woman
just checked the bills, just for a second, why had no one cleaned
the pool.

and why, why was the shoe and the leg so grimy. why was the shoe, 
the red shoe, the red shoe not clean, waiting on the line for tiny 
feet and searching toes. you had so far to walk in those shoes.

and the swallows swam that night, free of burden, free of a dead child,
free of the guilt the guilt oh god the guilt, the worst guilt was the guilt 
that had to tell your mother, your father, your husband, your son. your son
that now was not enough for you? did you need two to make you feel something 
again? and now, as one, with one, is this not enough?

and the swallows swam that night, free of red shoes, free of dirty ponds and
bills and guilt and all hell. and the swallows swam and they returned to their
nests, each one returned home to their nests, each one returned to a small pink
bear that they had called 'truffles', and a book waiting to be read, waiting to
be read by daddy. and under each pillow a tooth, a clump of wet hair.