a literary magazine.
QYQE BESNIKE / FAITHFUL CUCKOO
That afternoon,
singular cuckoo
eating caterpillars
covered in bristles.
Metamorphosis given
in the xhubleta of coarse
white felt and soft feathers,
I swallow the bitter draught,
I think of the smell of needles,
pine littering the ground, dark tar
clutching to my insides, how can one
person hope to grow wings from bones
that make no room for anything but marrow?
Mother embroidered the xhubleta with gold thread,
she called me daughter of the sun, she let me wear
her cuckoo spirit, she told me it means holiness.
Bird’s nest is an earthen jar is a long forest,
endless quest for the sense of belonging,
out of the safe isolation created by the
interior of a fledgling-woman’s soul.
Sunlight burns the eyelids, scorches
the parched throat, blinds the gaze,
but woman-fledging cannot hide,
should not clip her wings,
nor tear the xhubleta,
nor pull the thread,
nor shrink herself
for owl’s hunting.