February 2014 – Julia Bird

Everything And Again (And Again)

When the taxidermist wouldn’t let me buy

the magpie, rampant, on a bark-stripped branch

with a diamanté bracelet wriggling in its beak

because, tradition says, that bird’s reserved

for jewel thieves to give to one another,

it put the tin hat on a week that featured

a walk up a mountain to a café that had shut,

moth in my winter coat and a puddingless date.

Decode the magpie’s song and sing along:

My daddy is a dove, a raven’s my mum.

My feathers are dipped in midnight and noon,

sin and salvation, milk teeth and amalgam.

I once saw fourteen magpies in a day –

some pairs, some threes. They all belong to me.

Julia Bird