Dos Pájaros

for all the two-spirited birds of Pulse
 
The songbird sings
and pulls on the cords inside you.
 
We are it, doubled,
perched in the Evergreen.
 
Inside our song:
           
the fish swims with currents
it can barely breathe in
 
the wind blows with directions
that rival the river
 
the mountains move miniscule,
shifting the world in ways it isn’t meant to.
 
 
Two-spirits.  Two-ways to move.
Two-ways to pulse, throb, drop. 
Two-ways to break. 
Two-ways to transcend.
 
We are the flight and the wings
on jet streams
that carry change.
  

Three Poems – Sarah F Moran

Flood (1951) Thomas Hart Benton

Caution: Go Slow

I work with the flinching dog,
unable to speak its history, given the yellow caution card
to decorate its cage
The cower and the cover and the rage that hides behind
the snarl of teeth and spit.
I’m full of snarl and teeth and spit.
The low growl, hide in the corner, eye cut, 
is a mask.
Somewhere inside the shiver is forgiveness.
Somewhere inside the eyes is love.
I flinch sometimes when you touch me.
I resist my snarl and teeth and spit.
I cannot find the forgiveness inside my shiver.
I cannot recognize the love behind my big brown eyes.
I want my own cage
and my own understanding:
I’m silent now like the dog;
            unable to articulate my history.
Full of snarl and teeth and spit
Not seeing the love pouring off the raised hand
but desiring.