Lift Me Like a Leaf by Suza

                                                                                                            Suza Lambert Bowser

                                                                                                Decauter Prison- March 2013

“Lift me Like a Leaf” (After Shelley)

While standing in line, I spot a red cardinal

Now dead and nesting in a little of leaves

My neck cranes brokenly, struggling to see beyond the prison glass.

Here inside, I can’t hear the paper scrape,

The whisk and hush of desiccated leaves.

So, like the audio overdubs I’ve recorded in my life

I cover this video with remembered sounds from outside.

“Look!” one prisoner exclaims, “a hummingbird!”

The other women sigh a cute and tragic “Awwww.”

These girls don’t know shit about birds, I gloat

Noting the red feathers melting soggy against the skeleton.

But, then I see it:

            A tiny shadow on the concrete ledge,

            A smudge, a fluttered shape

            The needle-thin tubular beak.

It’s a hummingbird all right and by God.

Silent swirls of dead leaves grace this humbling delicacy

Like the cardinal, I’m the red-faced oaf fallen beside a fairy.