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Brian Francis

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.




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