Hero(i)n

I thought it was a bird.  The skimmed rush.  The hush as before a fowl fixes

            its head up from shadow water

sickened by its own nature, narcissus-
                                                            reversed.  unfortunate predatory

consequence.  the luck.  heron spots two ducklings nesting on an outcrop
                                     
                        of rocks.

Swift-like. heron bounces off the lake, a hollowed pebble.  in one swallow

            babes go 

down.  pulsing inside heron’s throat until they succumb.  mama

mallard squawks and plods—helpless, she flies low

away.  how long do mother ducks mourn—until the next day

                                    next month, until pitch pines
shake barren

            or a naked beggar shakes on his kitchen floor like

breccia in a rainstick, begging: 2 bird bags, 4 quarters, 1 gram?  His daughters
          
            empty cupboards, offer open tin at his feet —eat, eat— until   
                                  
                        heron comes.   when sick,

fowl fit in veins like ducks in necks—vortex of sorts.

some knew this.

                        yet, none bothered to explain how
hero(i)n

made him fly
                       
                        why hero(i)n
                                                            made him
well, less starved.


by Airea D. Matthews

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Airea D. Matthews is a Cave Canem and Callaloo fellow, a 2013 Pushcart Prize nominee, and is currently a Zell Postgraduate Poetry Fellow at the University of Michigan where she earned her MFA. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Missouri Review, The Baffler, The Indiana Review and WSQ. She is currently at work on her first full-length poetry collection. She lives in Detroit with her husband and four children.