Such Small Wanderers

By Heather Lang-Cassera

Previously published in Black Fox Literary Magazine, Issue 22

Not wanting to care 
for the pigeons, 
their patterns of negative night sky bodies, 

not wanting to love 
their heart-curved flesh, 
too large for the dry riverbeds 
of my hands, 

not wanting to justify my unshadowed 
tenderness for something 
buoyed and overripe and understanding 
of her own need, 
and surrounded by silent songbirds, 

not wanting two wings almost identical 
in symmetry, shadows 
that strangulate the ground, 

not wanting invisible tongues 
of perfect pink oleander 
forever pressing onward 
even in this arid sky— 

a birth cry, a death breathing, an intangible 
sun, a heap of inconsolable hope 
available only from yesterdays,

these fingers become bandages 
for everything 
in my body that might someday be broken, 

the obscurity of other blunt souls 
dredges bee pollen 
as bright sorrow, 

horizons as weeping everything,
murmurs as fragile bundles, 

anguish illuminated 
in each of these 
exquisite gallopings.


Photo by Ronda Churchill.

Heather Lang-Cassera is a Clark County, Nevada Poet Laureate Emeritus (2019-2021); a 2022 Nevada Arts Council Literary Arts Fellow; a publisher and editor for Tolsun Books; and a lecturer with Nevada State College where she teaches College Success, Creative Writing, Professional Editing and Publishing, and more. Her book, Gathering Broken Light (Unsolicited Press, 2021), was written with the support of a Nevada Arts Council Project Grant, and all royalties go to the Vegas Strong Resiliency Center. Learn more about Heather and her poetry at: heatherlang.cassera.net

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