by Karen Elizabeth Sharpe

Light dim as a nickel and yesterday, hail.

May’s flowers have eluded me.

All my days are interior, drab as mice

and yet the birds of spring collude to save me:

The pileated’s rumble, hammering

a hole big as a fist, echoing my chest.

Goldfinches highlight the feeder

squawk jays blue the hemlock.

Over the water swallows kitewing

and swarm, liquid black chip and chatter

and a vagrant scarlet tanager

chick-and-burrs the crabapple

while a million unremarkable sparrows

banter and chirrup, cheerup, cheerup, cheerup.

Karen Elizabeth Sharpe is a poetry editor at The Worcester Review and author of Prayer Can Be Anything, (Finishing Line Press, 2023). Her poems have or will soon appear in On the Seawall, The MacGuffin, SWWIM Everyday, Split Rock Review, Mom Egg Review, and Halfway Down the Stairs, among others.