Milk and Blood and Thing with Feathers
Poem by H. Kurzke
Milk and blood until she bleeds. Men and women, repeat, repeat. Drink deeply, until she bleeds, she will be one or two or three. Made inside her, thing with feathers, made with blood until she bleeds. She heard that hope is in the heart, love, moon, cycle, until she bleeds. Rings of life, her body the sea. a crumb in the gale, until she bleeds. Hope and pact with angel birds, she feeds the storm, until she bleeds.
Her body milk, life of another,
the soul is pregnant, until she bleeds.
Milk and blood, thing with feathers,
is what stays until she bleeds,
makes love, imagines endlessly,
pregnant bird, until she bleeds.
To me, this is a spoken book with the papermache statue and baby bird being the book’s cover. It is intended to stretch the definition of what a book can be, but also the statue is a container, for the bird-baby and for the words.
It’s been my final piece (so far) with which I am dealing with the topic of miscarriage and unfulfilled wish for a child.
