Jose A. Alcantara: Divorce

He has flown headfirst against the glass

and now lies stunned on the stone patio,

nothing moving but his quick beating heart.

So you go to him, pick up his delicate

body and hold him in the cupped palms

of your hands. You have always known

he was beautiful, but it’s only now, in his stillness,

in his vulnerability, that you see the miracle

of his being, how so much life fits in so small

a space. And so you wait, keeping him warm

against the unseasonable cold, trusting that

when the time is right, when he has recovered

both his strength and his sense of up and down,

he will gather himself, flutter once or twice,

and then rise, a streak of dazzling

color against a slowly lifting sky.

---

Copyright 2021 Jose A. Alcantara. The poem first appeared in Rattle and more recently in American Life in Poetry.

Jose A. Alcantara is a father, math teacher, and poet who lives in western Colorado. He likes Van Morrison and refried beans.