ASHLEY STEINEGER
Grateful Birds
The jackhammer outside the Marlton sings sweet as the ovenbird
whose call was described as pure clusterfuck by the professor
in my late-bloomer-lesbian birdwatching club. Once, in the middle
of the woods, I thought wind moving through the oaks was water
so rushed to douse my bones. I’m in a different forest now, but even more
desirous for calm, startled by the mating calls of taxis, the wide-eyed
in Washington Square Park clicking lighters under glass pipes,
the punk-rock dove who built her nest on the fire escape from straw
and a dirty shoelace. I’m always happiest alone until I’m alone
in the city, dry-throated from talking to myself about how best
to absorb the sunrise instead of the concrete explosions and throngs
of mad neighbors ripping by in their bright attitudes and loud haircuts.
I’ve come to meet a half-forgotten lover for brunch and once we climbed
a hilltop in search of rain cold enough to numb our throttled hearts.
He also knew the names of all the grateful birds simply by their voices,
my favorite being the pileated woodpecker who despite her hair being
on fire, despite slamming her head into life’s immoveable obstacles,
she always found food, was always most beautiful.
Ashley Steineger is a poet and crisis counselor who believes poetry is the language of healing. She is the author of the chapbook Ebb/Flow (Blanket Sea Press, 2021), and her poetry has appeared in Palette Poetry, The Shore, and The Mantle, among others. Ashley received her MFA from Queen’s University of Charlotte. She currently lives and writes out of Raleigh, NC, where she enjoys forest bathing, collecting tattoos, and untranslatable words.