Bird of Prey
Mami, I find myself wishing your memory
were a bird of prey—
red-tailed hawk or black vulture,
just as long as the talons dig, long as edges curve
into outstretched fingers.
Oh to pierce through that final blur,
I’d prize any insignificance—
each ridge of the mahogany headboard
your spine ached against,
each college questionnaire we poured over,
at the foot of your bed. Oh to glimpse, again,
the massive, feathered wingspan
of the sunflowers that reached higher
than your height, heliotropic, heaven reaching,
outside your sliding glass doors.
Oh to hear the words from afar,
before they’d reached us,
her body is shutting down.
Oh to seize any telling form, even if only
the slender body of the anole
that proudly flared his red dewlap
outside the room you died in.
Let it drop
from curved beak to my hands,
I beg, any detail
Nicole Knoppová is a Florida-born poet currently based in Bristol where she received her Master of Arts from University of Bristol. Nicole works mainly with themes of grief, intergenerational trauma, and mental health, often playing within a dreamlike inner consciousness. Instagram & Tik Tok: @nk_poet