Robin Walter

9 poems
from o oio

Begin with the word


starling.
This is a story about flight.

or falling.

Hold in your mind the weight of a bird.
Feel in your hand her feathers shuffling.
Imagine the brightness of day breaking across her beak.
Consider: can a bird break a night

into day?

or:

Begin with the word brightness.
This is a story about night breaking

a bird.

Hold in your mind the weight of her feathers.
Feel in your body her mind shuffling.
Imagine the night breaking across her body.
Consider: can a hand break a bird?

or:

Begin with the word story.
This is a bird about night falling into body.

Hold her feathers in your beak.
Imagine her

body.

Consider: can a shuffling brightness

break?

or:

 

Begin with







your
hand









shuffling
the night across her body.


 

Begin with


your mind .
feel your hand
breaking her beak


:



the weight of her feathers





falling .


Imagine her



shuffling bright

 

think wingbone think hollow

think wingbone think
hollow see black
capped chicadee
stayed through
winter a pine bough think
pine pollen see it lift
in light think

so delicate a thing
can lift so fragile
a body
can stay see

sorrow how
it stays
a body through
winter and pine pollen bird
bone see rime
rime of ice on blush
grass reflections of
bone through glass a
body did not
stay the winter how winter
did not

stay
think lift think blush
grass how sky
turns soft relieves
its clouds of winter think
snowflake think try
and lift try and

lift see

flight—


how it wings a body
from bone

 

think



lift
in light

a
fragile

sorrow

through




winter



soft





flight––

 

think hollow

wingbone
see


it lift


fragile

sorrow how




winter winter



relieves




flight


from bone

 

ink

see black









bird

blush

bone through glass




think
try
and lift and

lift and

 

hollow













winter winter

 

think hollow



winter

light

lift so fragile
a


sorrow

s
o





soft





a body

 

Robin Walter lives in Fort Collins, Colorado. She received her MFA in poetry from Colorado State University, where she now teaches. Her work has appeared in Poets.org, West Branch, Wildness and elsewhere. Her manuscript Little Mercy was selected by Kazim Ali as a finalist for Omnidawn's 1st/2nd book prize. Her manuscript 'o oio' is a finalist for the 2021 Interim Test Site Poetry Series and was a semi-finalist for the series in 2020. Her chapbook of the same title was a finalist for the 2020 Broken River Prize judged by Kaveh Akbar. She was the recipient of a 2021 Academy of American Poets Prize.