Kiskadee Bride

A poem by Shivanee Ramlochan
read at Douen Islands: Kiskadee

In the courtyard, all our throats are burst figs.
Each cry is its own tyrant.

Beaks mark the pulse of entrail-love, cooing in yellowflesh.

Call your husband passerine,
feel him flit a goodbye beneath your eyelash.

Call your husband shrike,
sound your mourning bellow in the bill of his last farewell.

Call your husband home,
watch wings strum the hurricane screen,
wet like November in Lopinot,
wetter than a split-throat struck talon hard from above.

In the courtyard at night, close your eyes.

Be yourself braceleted in cagewire.
Be feasted upon by greedy mouth, by guttural swoop.

Hold his small prey in your open heart,
let the whole flock eat you out of the small rooms where you wait
to be made into a triplenotched perch.

Where all his cries in your cleft throat echo yes,
echo bright,
echo

kiss-kill me, kiss-kill me, kiss-kill me,

Carry him home to the cauldron of your canary bed.