by Sue Fitchett 

Our morning is tethered to many small things; 

some have more weight than others: 

bread for birds flung from branches 

rags & dusters wing the punch-tender sky. 

A slim book offers poems that stick 

in the gut, needles & lilies. 

There’s white everywhere: 

rolls I bake for lunch 

sea foam 

within magazine pages 

words swim for their lives. 

My life might depend on this hummingbird 

tongue at my rain jacket’s zip end 

the light is damp, my hand slips 

no mouth seems so minute, so like a mirage 

frangible, splintering. 

The phone’s leaden volley 

an armed intruder, master thief steals all 

our morning ties, your brother 

falls in a park grass 

rises to hold him 

his eyes 

two flesh-bound stars 

blink out. 

Cyclone Lusi passes over our city. 

I open the front door meet her lash 

see a tree broken.