but some men call out the rapists
by Destiny O. Birdsong
it’s true
you’re no swan
and neither
is this Leda
her dark throat
gouged
the clot
of lifeblood
almost invisible
against her skin
you’re a peacock
pleading
for his
nesting hen
(and doesn’t
every woman
need to hear
at least once
the sound
of her own keening?)
you nurse
your cracked
beak
most beautifully
technicolor
tears
fanning your back
as you dip
into
the goosedown
crowning
her thighs
you’re
healing her
like a cuckoo
you build
your nest
atop
the webbed burn
on her sternum
you nestle
your eggs
in the blooming
bruise of her telling
perhaps
you’re most like
a vulture:
usually silent
until
you discover
a curdle
of maggots
paring
her perineum
how you
mourn
what you
have called
behind
her back
a carcass
that only
hours
earlier
might have been
a feast
for you
alone
you’re no swan
and neither
is this Leda
her dark throat
gouged
the clot
of lifeblood
almost invisible
against her skin
you’re a peacock
pleading
for his
nesting hen
(and doesn’t
every woman
need to hear
at least once
the sound
of her own keening?)
you nurse
your cracked
beak
most beautifully
technicolor
tears
fanning your back
as you dip
into
the goosedown
crowning
her thighs
you’re
healing her
like a cuckoo
you build
your nest
atop
the webbed burn
on her sternum
you nestle
your eggs
in the blooming
bruise of her telling
perhaps
you’re most like
a vulture:
usually silent
until
you discover
a curdle
of maggots
paring
her perineum
how you
mourn
what you
have called
behind
her back
a carcass
that only
hours
earlier
might have been
a feast
for you
alone
Destiny O. Birdsong is a poet and essayist whose poems have either appeared or are forthcoming in African American Review, Indiana Review, Bettering American Poetry Volume II, The BreakBeat Poets Presents: Black Girl Magic, Split This Rock's Poem of the Week, and elsewhere. Her critical work recently appeared in African American Review and The Cambridge Companion to Transnational American Literature. Destiny is a recipient of the Academy of American Poets Prize, has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Callaloo, and Jack Jones Literary Arts, and residencies from The Ragdale Foundation and The MacDowell Colony. Read more of her work at www.destinybirdsong.com.
