seel: to stitch closed the eyes (of a falcon) during training

What transparent thread, what sure and small fingers ignoring the pulse in a slender throat: fingers forced to hem yards of cloth by the lamp of one candle, transform rage into seamlessness. When his sky is sewn shut, the bird will fly in darkness, learn to obey one whose sons will make coats out of leopards and ash trays from the severed hands of silverbacks. Four hundred fresh elephant tusks decorating a reception hall in Brussels, a hill of bison skulls on which poses a white man who has personally shot twenty thousand head. Nations of animals gone, yet this moment stays with me, a serf girl of delicate build stitching shut the lids of a living creature for the pleasure of a man who owns her as well. Pain slipping into, then out of, trembling tissue.

Artist’s Statement

A    few summers ago, I began every morning by setting a timer and writing non-stop for ten minutes, usually prompted by an image or a snippet of language that intrigued me. I filled a notebook and forgot about it. It wasn’t until later that fall that I decided to type up what I had written. I was amazed to find pattern and rhythm in those pages—seeds of poems that might be worked into finished pieces. Writing without editing or judging allowed me to link images I might otherwise not have linked, and to express without self-consciousness the anger and sorrow I feel over how we have treated our planet and her animals. That is the major theme of Like Saul, my forthcoming chapbook from Plan B Press; “seel” is one the poems in the collection. I feel it exemplifies both the theme of the book and a new direction for my poetry.