Arthur Russell
Little Bird
I wanted more from myself than this little bird
made of locked thumbs and beckoning fingers,
but I see my mother spooning jam and nuts
on pastry dough, cutting it into triangles
while talking on the phone; my older sister
toying with the teardrop pendant on her chest
that I remember from the days when I
could stand on my mother's lap and do the same;
my brother's stubby finger backs with stubby hairs
tying nautical knots in the cockpit of his sailboat;
and the undulating pencil line my father drew
to signify the water level in a diagram.
No wonder my ambition flew
no further than an arm's length from my heart.
Bio
Arthur Russell won the Brooklyn Poets' Poem of the Year Award in 2015 and was the runner up for the same award in 2021. He won second place in the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award for 2021. He is one of the Gang of Six that manages the Red Wheelbarrow Poetry group, the mc of its monthly open mic, co-leader of its weekly workshop and co-editor of its annual journal, the Red Wheelbarrow.