Two Poems by Robin Richardson

Birds, Robin Richardson

Disguised As A Cub

Bone shows through the opening
of her snakebite. Calloused foot

on cool grass, naked save the rosary
of swallow beaks. Like a good blacksmith’s

daughter, only neither pale nor meek
she drags a cane through unmarked graves –

grouse and wallaby disassembled by the larva
smug in staving off their own soon smear

across the bedrock. Breeze makes brail
of her forearm, forged by termites are tunnels

only fit for tics and timid ants. She was born
beneath Orion, spread-eagle over February.

First word a yawn as she lay pawing at a slope
so sterling, turned to steam and parted.

 

Temiscaming

A hornet drums the lamp, red
clay, dead moth, pike smiling
from the skillet. Jin’s what I’m drinking,
I was raised on robbery. Henri taps
a yellowed thumb against the table
off time. His eyes are closed, legs
crossed, he shakes as he brings
the plastic cup of homebrew
to his lips, says he loves Joni Mitchell.
We pass his words through sieves. Stories
we’ve heard before. Leisurely
lift the joint, pull quiet, burn and listen.
Hairline pink and narrow, jolts
when something spooks. He tests the air,
scouts a patch to sour with an unwashed
vowel: O. Goddamn throat. The cabin’s
cold log keeping out the thunder.

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About the Author:

Robin Richardson is the author of Grunt of the Minotaur, released in Fall 2011 by Insomniac Press. She’s is a Toronto native pursuing her MFA in poetry at Sarah Lawrence in New York. Her work has appeared in many Canadian and international journals including Cv2, The Puritan, Filling Station, The Cortland Review, The Berkeley Poetry Review, and The Literary Review of Canada. She’s the recipient of the Joan T Baldwin award for writing and visual art and, with the generous support of the Ontario Arts Council, is currently working on her second collection of poems Nervosa.