#dawn lonsinger

In the eye of the storm we came up out of basements and found sea birds in our yards— gulls and terns stockpiling debris, and frigate birds gliding flawless over the interstate. A white ibis crawled out of the gutter and loosed its looped limbs into the air. Petrels and doves swarmed wet parking lots. What glistened overwhelmed us, swallows rising like a sheet over the injured.

Say what you will about the car-choked streets, how no one can walk on the sidewalks because they are covered with cheap goods, but all I see is how those fake Rolexes flashbulb the afternoon into elsewhere. Button slogans face the sky & say some things quietly forever.

If it weren’t for the hazard of your eyes

Echo the ocean of you.

What is left is fact and its antihistamine Carry it to the river and drop it in. Watch it give in like a vocabulary greased, the fish unlocked by their own removable beauty Echo the ocean of you when you (carrying the description) are gone.

"zoo sonnet," by dawn lonsinger

[and every creeping thing that creepeth] the veined flood did not care what the mute sang and when he died into it, the event, gist boarded, feather and fang all abang in the hull, pupils wet wet, merely lent for the ride/tide/tidings. Carcasses lift up around us like advice, flotation devices. Leashes are of light & sift into us. Bewitched prey of salvation. Rumor has it the birds were there, calmly clattering on deck, drowning the whimpers below, but really they raised the balmy air like a flag, darkened the little lures Noah held in his fists, and then dispersed, water everywhere burning—total thirst.