My Daughter is a Falconress
My daughter
is a falconress
in the grey fog sky
she draws with her eyes
a tiny hood that
contains my head
My daughter
is a falconress
& she sends me as far
as her will goes
We ride buses and trains
all thru the city
they let us ride free
to the ends of curbs
I dread mistakes
but she brings
down the little bird
She teaches me
how to bring down
the little bird. He
bites me and his name
is Bowie. From
my wrist and scalp
he draws blood
so I go back into
my hooded silence
talking to myself
& going to sleep
She muffles my dreams
in the hood she made
& stuffs it with
drawings of my head
She says I look like
Robert Creeley
but with a widow’s
peak and fangs
I’m usually on a skateboard
& she is too, she says
“find your own line”
& rides away with
the bird on her wrist
It does not draw blood
Her eyes hold him
as they hold me
She draws a limit
beyond our flight
She trains me
to listen and be still
She rewards me
with an openness
to anything other
Her growing heart
& mind will soon
battle like we all do
as people, we become
one of them. We
carry this in each other
Riding the great
falcon hunt. It’s
beautiful and it forever
will be she says
pulling my hood
& hugging it down
My daughter is a falconress
& I her gerfalcon
raised at her will
from her wrist
I go off flying
as if her mind
sought me in flight
My daughter
is a falconress
& I tread her wrist
from her fog-grey eyes
she makes me fly
& sends me away
as far as she wants
We always get in for free
I tread her wrist
& wear the hood
talking to myself
quite naturally
after Robert Duncan
MICAH BALLARD is the author of over a dozen books of poetry, including Waifs and Strays (City Lights Books), Afterlives (Bootstrap Press), The Michaux Notebook (FMSBW), Parish Krewes (Bootstrap Press), Selected Prose, 2008-19 (Blue Press), Evangeline Downs (Ugly Duckling Presse), Daily Vigs (Bird & Beckett Books), Vesper Chimes (Gas Meter), and Negative Capability in the Verse of John Wieners (Bootstrap Press). He lives in San Francisco with poet Sunnylyn Thibodeaux and their daughter Lorca. Image by Lorca Ballard.