How alike we are: nocturnal, shadow-
loved, starved. Look at you—
feeding on what little I have
to offer: house scraps, overripe
fruit. I sit on the porch, wait
for your dark wingbeats
to glance my neck, my ears,
take root in my eaves. You,
my night bird, dark spots
on each forewing.
When the leaves green
again, I know you’ll lift away
from me, from my crumbs of bread,
strawberries, little aril jewels
that redden my fingers. Love is this
simple— your tongue darting
into my pan of rainwater, sweet
rinds soaked in sugar. How
I read the sigils on your tender
back as you touch me, your
swift kiss on my cheek, then
watch you disappear to find
slender cedar branches, a tuft
of grass, something else to devour.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 26, Issue 6.
Amanda Auchter is the author of The Wishing Tomb, winner of the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Poetry and the Perugia Press Book Award, and The Glass Crib, winner of the Zone 3 Press First Book Award for Poetry. Her writing has appeared in publications such as Alaska Quarterly Review, American Poetry Review, HuffPost, CNN, Shenandoah, The Massachusetts Review, and the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day project, among others. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Bennington College and is a book reviewer for the Indianapolis Review and Rhino Poetry. She lives in Houston with her husband and their menagerie of cats.
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