By Kelan Nee

It woke me, the high slung
pitch & swoop of sound.
Someone told me once
that a cardinal holds a soul
of someone lost: red, tufting.
& every day for two years
cardinals descended
on the locust tree,
the only one in the backyard.
More than I could count.
& I learned their songs. I
learned how they sing.
Until I moved. Now I know
a man who lost his son.
He rides his bike & sees
his boy in robins. He told me
I don’t believe it’s the spirit
of my son, but I see them
& I think—& I like it.
& there you are today:
careless, sitting on the peak
of the wooden fence, blazing.
The sky today is too blue,
cloudless, for this kind
of stillness. Sometimes
I make your noise
back to you with my mouth.
Most times I watch
the feathers fill & deflate,
count their creases
like a well-worn face.
& today, at least, I like it.

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Kelan Nee is a poet and carpenter from Massachusetts. His debut collection Felling won the 2023 Vassar Miller Prize and was published in April of 2024. He lives in Houston where he is pursuing a PhD and is the Editor of Gulf Coast Journal.