Birdchest
Wishin’ for thighs thick
skin callin’ me second
thought & third rail thin
built to sink & some
times sing heavy
feathers don’t fly
if the frame aint fit
if my song come hollow
I aint shit just caws
cooped with spirits
be loosed mama
forcefeedin’ don’t satiate
this ache ever
hear the one about
the one who nested
in wreckage leaves
debris this name
I failed daddy
lessons on flight all
outoftune a body’s
surrender to be whole
& haunted aint all
too terrible but aint
too good a hand-
me-down held hurt
to this frame fit
to be bound to
branch & blood out
Brian Francis is a Cave Canem fellow from New York City. He has a BA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Pittsburgh and an MFA in Poetry from NYU. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Cortland Review, Tupelo Quarterly, No, Dear, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Fledgling Rag. He lives and teaches middle school in Harlem.