Bird on a Branch

A bird poised on a branch
asked the moon lover
for the number of lives
she had left

before she died.
She plumed her feathers
like a canopy
& tried to breathe free.

The smog was thick
the drone was loud
& the current of sound
raged against her lustrous trill.

 

 

Rebecca Ruth Gould‘s poems and translations have appeared in Nimrod, Kenyon Review, Tin House, The Hudson Review, Salt Hill, and The Atlantic Review. She translates from Persian, Russian, and Georgian, and has translated books such as After Tomorrow the Days Disappear: Ghazals and Other Poems of Hasan Sijzi of Delhi (Northwestern University Press, 2016) and The Death of Bagrat Zakharych and other Stories by Vazha-Pshavela (Paper & Ink, 2019).
  Website: https://rrgould.hcommons.org/