The wish list doesn’t change from year to year:
warm socks, fine chocolate, good rum or wine,
a book you haven’t read. A gift to open
on Christmas, a gift just for your birthday.
Did I hear you venture a different wish
this time? You are your aging mother’s only
child, yet she can’t or won’t recall the details
of your birth. Winter solstice, and the moon
was waxing gibbous, one day shy of full—
that much is fact, but facts alone fall short
of truth. I can’t fulfill your wish to know—
but remember, long ago, you dreamed
a snowy owl exploded from your breast.
Wasn’t that you—the golden eyes, the hooked
beak peeking out of plumage, the thick-
feathered talons, and the brown-flecked wings
beating open? Wasn’t that your heart born
in flight, such startling light that joined the moon
in revolt against night’s longest darkness?
–
Marisa P. Clark is a queer Southerner whose writing appears/will appear in Shenandoah, Cream City Review, Nimrod, Epiphany, Foglifter, Potomac Review, Rust + Moth, Jabberwock Review, and elsewhere. Best American Essays 2011 recognized her nonfiction among its Notable Essays. She lives in New Mexico with three parrots and two dogs.