Family dinner

The landscape stretches

plucks a shiny baby

one which drools & flutters

body as open as the wind. I

flinch at the questions asked by

an aunt at the family dinner—

I lift the landscape until it dips

back into me

I flutter & drool against

my chicken pen. The

aunt drags me back into my house

I revolt for this is wrong.

Here in the chicken pen

shiny baby sleeps here afront the

chicken pen I shoot the

landscape a reminder

that I exist in one world. The

landscape stretched &

plucked a shiny baby

one which is mute

shuttering at the pasture's loops &

burrows one which drinks with

the chickens. I flinched at the

suggestions of the aunt I recounted

that time I lifted a shiny baby—

O love in feather & clay.

Dorothy Lune is a Yorta Yorta poet, born in Australia. Her work has appeared in Pinhole Poetry, Pink plastic house, Olit, Ice lolly review, & more. She is compiling a manuscript entitled Lady Bug.