Katrinka Moore


from Numa

However you imagine her, asleep
she folds in on herself fawn-like, puma
tail stretched to her chin.

On a high

branch of a cedar, waxwings
nest-build—twigs, grass, fluff—
send down whistles & flickers
of light to the sleeper, who
opens




                                                            her eyes. A shadow crosses     as




                                                                                                          one bird dives      snatches a tangle
                                                                                                          of shed fur      & flies up, zigzagging
                                                                                                          between leaves. Touching
                                                                                                          nothing.

turns her head to the left / turns
it to the right / lifts chin, glances
up / pivots to see behind / lines
radiate out in / infinite number / arrows’
tips so distant no one knows / no
front    down    back    up / field
of directions leaving south east
west north in the dust

Numa moves through the forest four-legged but wings
flap close to her temples. Slows beneath river-bottom
pines. Winds her way around sticky trunks.


                Clears a circle      sweeps away needles      digs a fox hole.


                               (birds she’s eaten      crunching
                               tiny bones      spitting out the beak      texture
                               of claws)



                                                            Begins by rolling into
                                                            an egg-shape, growing
                                                            a shell.

/ Bird’s head on
a young girl’s
body / feathery
crest, yellow-
tipped / thin fast
legs beneath
gym shorts hop-
ping from one
foot to the
other / a berry
in her hand /

Katrinka Moore is the author of Thief (BlazeVOX) and This is Not a Story (Finishing Line Press). Recent poems appear in 5_Trope, Web Del Sol, CLWN WR, Georgetown Review, and Far Out Further Out Out of Sight. The poems from Numa are part of a series about a shape shifting creature.

 
 
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