by Ronna Bloom
I courted emptiness for ten years
and it suddenly married me. Now I’m scared
of this sky-sized freedom precipice.
But there’s no going back.
The cliff has turfed me off
and the birds are flying through me already
in their beautiful green and blue birdsmaids’ dresses
singing our song.
I begin to rejoice with them
when I hear about the thousands of other birds
who are smashing into windows and dropping dead —
which only makes me all the more certain of my vows.
— from Juniper Volume 4, Issue 3