Incendiary Lit

Came across this wonderful poem by Lucia Perillo in Indiana Review’s Summer 2007 issue.

Martha
Nearly all the remaining quarter million Passenger Pigeons were killed in one day in 1896

They named the last one Martha
and she died September 1st, 1914 in the Cincinnati Zoo,
she who was once one of so many billions
the sky went dark for days
when they flew past.
Makes me wonder what else could go,

some multitudinous widget like clouds or leaves
or the jellyfish ghosting the water in autumn
or the shore-shards of crushed clams?
Goodbye kisses:
once I had so many of you but now I notice
your numbers growing slim—

Yesterday a man stood me up in the sea
behind the big rock where the sand dollars live.
And when I said: Now we should kiss
it seemed we’d grown too peculiar
and I thought: oh-ho, kisses are you leaving too
like the man’s hair? Or like

the taut bellies we once had
or the menstrual period that was mine alone—
time flew its coop
our days had skid
and now see my commas going too
the way they say art mimics life?

So I did no hem-haw with the man
I told him to grab hold of my ears
since daylight’s burning
time’s a wasting
let’s fire it to feathereens—
perhaps the last of our wild flock.

Posted: Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Category: Poems.