VOICES
“My Blue Bird” photo by Jordan Jeffreys
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Glass
POETRY
Blue Bird Jordan Jeffreys
My grandmother had a glass blue bird Smooth and hypnotizing, fragile. I took it off her nightstand, the weight heavy in my small hands. I hold on to her wooden house With the red tin roof With the hostas and blush azaleas outside Surrounding a stone Putto statue And the dense forest out back. She told me of wolves back there, So I ran. Carried my glass blue bird with me Through the trees Pulled burs from My pale, white skin My grass-stained clothes My hip-length blonde hair Dogs were always barking Always biting; she called them Hellhounds. We ate outside. Eat your food before the birds and squirrels eat it for you. Yellow butterscotch candies, moon pies, black coffee– Licking sticks of butter like ice cream. Her house smelled like sick people; cigarettes And cheap cherry blossom perfume Her heavy wooden furniture Smooth hickory bed posts Transformed into lurking strangers at night. Cowering under the covers, I clutched the glass bird in my fist. I crouched in the small closet slanted under the roof. I lay on the cold maple floor, Tried on her pearls and diamonds And her stiff silken blouses. At night I’d take my bird out and shine my flashlight through its blue body, Watch it glow.
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That glass blue bird sits on my shelf The fearful weight in my hands then Feels like nothing now.
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I dust off my blue bird – Proof the past was real. It had to be real. I need it to be real.
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