I.
My father tears the body,
lines his fingers along
the fish’s cracked back fin
and pulls against the head–
its eyes opaque from the fry.
He removes
the tender middle,
layered in tiers like feathers
holds the meat, still wet,
and asks Marie’s mother
to open her mouth.
II.
At Sunday school,
a helper-mother
explains to me that birds
are creatures most without sin—
for they fly closest to god.
This same mother
often wielded a Beretta
to guard the convenience store
she and her husband ran
in West Philadelphia.
Once her husband
stabbed her for infidelity
with the store blade
used for slicing ham shanks.
At the hospital they told police
that a black man with a scar
splitting his left cheek
ransacked their place of business.
That night, at home
I page through a field guide
to North Atlantic birds,
studying lining, quill,
and large primaries
shaped like soft arrowheads.
I read of hollow bones,
those ancients
who studied entrails,
sporadic flight patterns
and consider the secrets
in those small hearts gorged,
white lungs blooming–
fists unraveling
in the open air.
III.
I remember
it was a day in December
I thought my mother
was beautiful
in a black wool coat
and houndstooth scarf.
That day she talked again
of how a starling
once snipped seed
right from her hand.
The bird cut her palm.
She bled a bit
and called it
pained blessing.