by Martha Silano

Today I learned Keats was only five feet tall. A compact corpse,
says Di Suess in “Romantic Poetry,” shorter than Prince,
which I so love knowing, along with the fact

a Steller’s jay might imitate the call of an osprey, line its nest
with pine needles or fur. Fur! That a Pacific geoduck
can live for over 160 years.

I interrupt my reading husband, share the news of a clam
weighing three pounds, that its neck is “baseball length,”
so to eat one you really need to dig deep,

down to armpit depth. As I lose my ability to breathe,
as walking becomes a rare treat, as I wake at 3 am
in painful positions, perplexed by my body’s

next move, I’m delighted by a drawing of a pigeon guillemot,
to learn of its bright red feet, the zing of chartreuse
hiding under Oregon grape’s bark,

the six pale gray eggs of the great blue heron, that strange,
screechy call of a bald eagle in my neighborhood.
On warm days an Anna’s hummingbird buzzes

near the chaise I rest on. Black-headed grosbeaks
that wintered in freaking Mexico sing
in a big-leaf maple

as I text my daughter what Di said: What doesn’t die?
The closest I’ve come to an answer
is poetry.

Martha Silano’s five books of poetry include Gravity Assist, Reckless Lovely, and The Little Office of the Immaculate Conception, all from Saturnalia Books. A forthcoming collection, This One We Call Ours, won the 2023 Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry, and will appear in the fall of 2024 from Lynx House Press. Martha’s poems have appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Learn more about her work at marthasilano.net. Martha’s is on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Threads @marthasilano.