& the blue birds fly from Pandora’s jewelry box

Issue 13

      i. Josseli Barnica
 
this is a test—a pregnancy test: once if by lullaby,
twice over the rainbow; the American Dream without 
 
the chicken dinner or two car garage. that’s where you’ll find me.
you wanted to get inside a better story—clawed your way
 
through my limestone halls, left blood smears like war paint each time I wiped
my thighs. you stole my sword to sharpen your heartbeat on antique
 
beliefs of PaPa who brings home arrowheads from the construction
zone. brush the fletching over your raw tongue, son. I could have
 
skewered that piece of meat & roasted it on a spit or plucked
a bowstring to announce your arrival. Aunt Flo came late to
 
the fairy tale, but she landed in the hay loft anyway--
its soft lift & sliding door—crossing its beams like bare legs, like
 
X marks the state interest. you roamed my battlefield sown with
sepsis—that’s how you found me made stable with bullet casings. make
 
their brittle shells dance into a baby’s breath bouquet. the one
butterfly in your belly will be heart-shaped you’ll become 
 
the lamb my daughter bleated to in her sleep. you’ll be a locked door,
a locket to hang between my breasts. you’ll never be at rest.
 
 
      ii. Nevaeh Crain
 
I became a diamond laden vessel on my third visit
to the hospital. you wanted me to be a basin to
 
bathe your wrists in. you needed to erase the evidence, to
clear the bite marks I made on your visit to Grandma’s cottage--
 
all red cloak, no dagger; a wolf writhing in vacancy. you
found me untouchable in the atrium with unhappy
 
families pushing up daises like bitter snowflakes. when you found
me, you saw the shade of a bitter babe clinging to my cold
 
 
teat with its teeth like it had swallowed Romulus & Remus.
my lips were dusky & blue when you made my mother’s pleas melt
 
like lemon drops & wished out stars fell like scars carving a path
through the caliche to the crematorium’s chimney top.
 
 
iii.Porsha Ngumezi
 
here above the chimney tops, I’m coming around to the notion
that we should burn the whole thing down & start over. this time
 
there will be pink toothpick umbrellas & a jug band for Hope
to dance to. look: a rabbit.         look: a dead deer entered the frame
 
with ravens circling. paint over them. if I’m not harlot
or saint, I’m not wanted even when I’m passing clots the size
 
of grapefruit or sequined into a ball gown. we’re drowned in fear
of lost licenses & prison time amid the rustle of
 
taffeta. Hope wraps me in a blanket, says, this time, there will
be no holes in our socks. I add, & the dogs will be on their
 
best behavior.  when you find me the bleeding will continue
after I consume a stream of pills for lack of the D&C
 
Dr. Fairy Godmother prescribed this is a test—built out of
lucky silver dollars. this is a test—a locket soldered
 
between each of our breaths. we haven’t failed yet. this is a mess--
a lost & found pregnancy. finders keepers. jeepers creepers.
 
happily comes with ever after when you find me alive
& the blue birds will fly. this is a test where the blue birds fly.

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Panika M. C. Dillon’s work has appeared in Heavy Feather Review, Copper Nickel, The Diagram, Steam Ticket, apt and others. She placed second for the 2024 Vivian Shipley Poetry Prize. She received her MFA in creative-writing poetry from Sarah Lawrence College and works as a legislative reporter at the Texas Capitol.

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