Messenger

She stands at my door without knocking. No one knocks any more. Friends gone to remote screens, neighbor fixed to her stoop as her dog pees, cloaked faces passing by. Even packages, just a thud. Days melt into night. Moths flutter at windows, my cat paws glass. There’s a horror out there but I only know the shaky mysteries of silence. Slowly earth greens. Deer and quail come down from the hills. And look, three goldfinch in the lavender, female and two males, a clean triangle of bird. One flies to the lemon tree, blends into fruit. The female flits to a naked gingko, bold little diva. They all take flight, quick swoops and off. February, so early for the mating game. Have all the rules changed? When I sleep, that girl’s there again and her cryptic smile. My red door glows, a bauble under porch light. Her dress the cobalted sky of the Sierra, how city sky looks now, lacking its smudge. What does she want? Message unspoken. Does she stand at the door of every dream, wait for us to wake up?

Beverly Burch’s third book Latter Days of Eve, won the John Ciardi Poetry Prize. Her work has also won a Lambda Literary Award, Gival Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the Audre Lorde and the Housatonic Book Awards. Poetry and fiction have appeared in 32 Poems, Denver Quarterly, New England Review, Willow Springs, Salamander, Tinderbox, Mudlark, Barrow Street and Poetry Northwest. www.beverlyburch.com