We fed the geese at the park,
wonder bread, day old, cheap.
Some had black beaks, some
orange beaks, gullets perched
beating back scraps, beautiful.
It was the 80s.
We didn’t know then feeding them bread
could cause their wings to twist.
How to trap a trapped thing.
Can’t fly. Can’t belong.
Has to scurry to hide in the bush, has to
freeze to death, dissolve down
into the lake, float up,
thin sheen of ice, feathers forming petals
crushed, preserved, sun melting.
Same car ride out there. Same cornfields
passing. Flat land. A mile a minute.
Is time wasted staring at the sky.
Young girl, afraid of everything.
Fed fear like handfuls of white
bread, soft. Throw it with intent,
let it scatter, let them fight for it.
–
A.M. Brant’s poems have appeared in Salt Hill Journal, Blue Earth Review, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. She teaches writing at the University of Pittsburgh and women’s and gender studies at Carlow University. She lives in Pittsburgh.