Bird Poem by Jenny Kalahar

A powdery pale friend of my mother's
sagging stockings nearly white
nearly blending into wrinkles elsewhere
on face, on neck, on arms
barely suspended by too-tight elastic
though it rippled all the way to ankles
all the way into her black, hard shoes.

She was as fragile as onion-skin paper
and pretty from her eyes upward.
She wore a beaded hairnet
that made her look as if
a misting rain had fallen
only upon her snow-white head.
Her eyes, so intensely blue
that her eyelids, when they closed
seemed to eclipse twin blue moons slowly
before they opened to the world again.
Her voice was unusual, throaty and musical
like a bird you've never heard, but imagined,
flown up from Africa, or Cuba
arriving to sing English to my ears.

I remember my mother's friend
would scarcely hug,
never wanting to let loose of both her canes
the ones with owl heads for grips—
brown-stained sticks like separate, helping limbs.
But she would put them both aside
against a wall, against a chair
and hold out wide her flapping arms
in a bird-like gesture
and, smiling, call me to her
to warm my bones against her feathers
to warm my soul against her heart