When I Need Tending
June combs my feathers for which fling I my wings wide. I splay, lorn, and lament the living world. She impresses upon me: you are alive to face what would wrench you. I breathe through her insistence. Skin alight under her haint touch. My nerves surge concentric; now in this time of abysmal fates; world witless and aflame. Yet I bird, oh, hover beneath her alive.
CM Burroughs is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago and the author of The Vital System and Master Suffering, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and a finalist for the Lambda Book Award and L.A. Times Book Award. Burroughs’ poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies including Poetry, Ploughshares, and Best American Experimental Writing. Burroughs has been awarded fellowships and grants from Yaddo, MacDowell, and Cave Canem Foundation.