Poetry books stacked on the sofa
Poetry on the Sofa
Poems by Joannie Kervran Stangeland

If Wishes Were Horses


Blue Sky

Your two hands now cup
a slender pulse,
feathers brushing the unreal dark.

The bones of your fingers
could lift, as light as wings
or the quick wind

that jostles the mock orange
where other birds snitch at freedom
with leaves and song. You hold

the one sparrow softly, think of its liquid eye.
You have the rest of your days
to keep or return.