Judy Brackett

WHILE SHE’S THINKING ABOUT WEEKS OF BAD NEWS

This sun/rainy day is not enough
to slake her thirst     for calm, for grace,
yet she says thanks     anyway

for water, for lime zest, for white-tailed brown bird
that flies into the glass     lands stunned
and unblinking for lightning-flash moments

then lifts and wings, wobbly,
to porch rail     to oak branch     to gone.

Judy Brackett lives in a small town in the California foothills of the northern Sierra Nevada. Her poems have appeared in California Fire & Water, Epoch, The Maine Review, Commonweal, Midwest Review, The Midwest Quarterly, Subtropics, Cultural Weekly, Crab Orchard Review, and elsewhere. She is a member of The Community of Writers. Her poetry chapbook, Flat Water: Nebraska Poems, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2019.