Written by Carole Greenfield
Raucous ballet of dark birds, cries sawing at the cold air, flapped in staggered sequence, landing of one a cue for the next to take heavy flight in brief spaces between branches, feathers shining ebony to chrome, chorus of tarnished angels overhead, miracle of somber, hoarse-voiced beauty, plaintive threnody stinging me to tears as I turn to see you, also watching, elbows folded on your car's roof, gaze lifted to those gold-and-silver birds. Not every love is as you'd pictured. Not every gift comes wrapped and labelled with your name.
first appeared in Amethyst Review, October 2022, and is included in Weathering Agents, published in July 2023 by Beltway Editions.
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Carole Greenfield grew up in Colombia and resides in New England, where she teaches English Language Learners at a public elementary school. Her work has been featured in such places as Dodging the Rain, Sky Island Journal, Glacial Hills Review and others. Her first collection, Weathering Agents, was released in summer 2023 by Beltway Editions.