A Poem by Deborah Kahan Kolb

Au Pair

 

I.

 

A cape starling or amethyst, some little bird –

Afrikaans

warbler, shows up in the greening spring, miniature

flicker-beat fluffing her breast, and gingerly finds

her perch among

our young. From somewhere within the murmuration

she exhales, violet-backed, wearing her mantle

like a boy.

Pied starling, fledging along with our own nestlings,

content to hover, and admire the view. Long-tailed

glossy starling,

her plumage lambent and glowing. Lamprotornis –

how fitting. A Tiffany work of art. Shimmer

up to us,

little bird. Gently she lights upon our New York

nest, but every so often I sense the sudden

run, the nimble

lift-off and vanishing flight of this lovely bird

back to Port Elizabeth, to the African

nesting ground,

the vivid southern tropics that’d spawned this chick.

 

II.

 

No address in the U.S. is proof

of residency except for your pulsing

heart emoji, fitted into a cage

of ribs built of pipe cleaners and hair

elastics, a rainbow of chortles,

and a compass pointing straight ahead

and a little to the left. Ons is werklik geseënd.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deborah Kahan Kolb was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. Much of her poetry reflects the unique experiences and challenges of growing up in, and ultimately leaving, the insular world of Hasidic Judaism. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Poetica, Voices Israel, Veils, Halos & Shackles (an international poetry anthology on the oppression and empowerment of women), New Verse News, Tuck, Literary Mama, Poets Reading the News, 3Elements Review, Rise Up Review, and Writers Resist. Her poetry won the James E. Tobin Award at Queens College and was selected as a finalist for the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Award. Deborah’s debut collection, Windows and a Looking Glass (Finishing Line Press, 2017) was a finalist for the 2016 New Women’s Voices Chapbook Competition. You can visit the author at:www.deborahkahan