Hedy Habra

Under the Waterfall 

It all began on a Summer solstice dawn: the sun disappeared in a fiery sky of molten marigolds and blood flowers tainting misty waterfalls all the way to the swan cove. And the startled swans wandered around mounds of featherless flesh lying pell-mell, sleeping forms with sparse down crowning their heads, a burnt umber field of sepia limbs sprouting from broken shells, their strange, acrid smell, terrified them: flapping their immaculate wings, they kept bathing in the purifying waters, came back to the inert bodies in maddened circles biting their own tails amidst the dormant newborns: had they heard of Andersen’s tales they’d wonder why they were all cursed at once with ugly little ducklings, unaware they were witnessing the origin of the human race. 

First published by Diode

From Under Brushstrokes (Press 53 2019)

 

The Way a Flock of Birds Improvises

    To Rosemary

She marks the calendar every day 

now, believes we should live life 

as a miracle.  

No one notices the difference

in her chest.

She reminds me, smiling,

"You once said

I was flat as an ironing board."

I wonder if we should live love 

as a miracle, 

when your lover slips into a coat of mail 

of indifference, 

when his eyes only reflect an inward vision,

when your heartbeat espouses his,

the way healthy people 

grow unaware

of their own pulse.

Then take every moment, 

imperfect as it seems, 

its dissonant echo,

transforming it into a score        

the way a flock of birds improvises,

over barbed wires.

First published by Live Encounters

Phoenicians Once Sailed From These Shores

Fishermen, shoulders bent, 

set sail daily, 

carrying baits, 

oil lamps, a loaf of bread.

Theirs a biblical patience, 

taking them farther 

every day, 

muscles tight, foreheads furrowing,

awaiting for the secular miracle, 

their nets deployed 

in an ancestral garb, 

flutters as a dancer's veil 

enveloping the dense,

sterile Mediterranean waters,

scooping algae, residues, dead fish, 

fugitive ripples.

They return home empty-handed,

later every time,

at dawn or dusk,

eyelids lowered,

disappearing under thick eyebrows, 

their flattened nets 

heavy with absence. 

First published by Live Encounters

From The Taste of the Earth (Press 53 2019)