"Herons" by Laura Casteel

We stalk the banks of swamps and slow rivers in silence, our voices too full of clam shells for hunting. We blossom in violence spring-loaded heads striking the mud for insects, salamanders, frogs our feathers arsenals of indigo knives, necks adorned with fishbone needles. Yet we fly so tenderly blooming from rocks slow wingbeats folding the air toward soft chests. For some, we are easy, conspicuous targets for others, kites pulling our own strings through sunset nectarine eyes in winter’s bare trees. You often see us alone and wonder how we mate but you haven’t seen what births us—the building, the gathering, the shared warmth of bodies. Alaskan coastline campus quad fountain we will adapt. We don’t come seeking attention tracing water with a seamstress touch but our exits are subtle as drag queens dropping coins for starving poets. Wherever we go the marshes may dry and the slick-calm ponds may grow scales of ice— they have, for centuries but so have we persisted. Soon, more than this, we will know abundance our beaks writhing with fish. ————————————– Laura Casteel called us from Pittsboro, NC. voicemailpoems.org/submit/ facebook.com/voicemailpoems x.com/voicemailpoems bsky.app/profile/voicemailpoems.bsky.social instagram.com/voicemailpoems