Kate Potts (Eclectic Scriptorium) - A Partridge — A Pear Tree
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A Partridge — A Pear Tree

The first day: Truelove sends
a shushed blue morning hour, the mute
absurdity of tarmac, a sobering of worn toes—
the upbeat’s echo dredges us home.

Second, he sends books, and underlinings—
Sartre’s mutter—something is beginning.
The words stem: flesh-nub,
furling bruise of a clear, new shoot.

We cultivate with iron tea and hours:
milk swigs, sweet drams, the open breath
of television at the schedule’s finish,
lush with nebula and static,

Johnny’s tender, breakfast croon.
The fruits set, wax, fluid and flesh,
specked skin—a fatty, nibbled velvet.
At four A.M. he cawls,

true as a child’s crayoned circle of bird—
twig-foot, shut-eye. He’s
no hart, nor dove, but gamey,
winter market plume.

His is a glistering, brass whirr
of wings, a glide—a chestnut tail.
I put by the feathers;
ease the meat from the bone.

     — Kate Potts

“A Partridge — A Pear Tree” poem by Kate Potts, read by me (Click title link for text source; click here for image source). I don’t know why I’m making recordings when I have a cold.

 

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