Black the center of our knowing. 
I sit in the river night. 
One dirty pebble piling up 
inside beauty. Think how sleep is. 
How sanctuary. How crow. 
This is not a song-body. 
How rock I am. Delicious in silence. 
Narcissus under petrichor. 
The long pause. I begin to see 
what prayer is. Woman 
strolling through fields of moons. 
Birds speak branch songs. Whole languages 
lost, now washed. Up on shore 
day arrives, oily, like seeds. 
The open hands of the trees catch 
light. Dahlia. Acorn. 
The crow takes them. 
Poor crow. I keep making you a metaphor 
for what I fear. Not ending but a perfect 
moment of black. The iris 
of any colored eye. 
Feathers fall through this living 
air. Poor bird. Poor innocent 
death that is everywhere 
and never wanted to be. 

Tresha Faye Haefner’s

poetry appears, or is forthcoming, in several journals and magazines, most notably Blood Lotus, Blue Mesa Review, The Cincinnati Review, Hunger Mountain, Mid-America Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, Radar, Rattle, and TinderBox. Her work has garnered several accolades, including the 2011 Robert and Adele Schiff Poetry Prize, and two nominations for a Pushcart Prize (one in 2012, the other in 2020). Her first manuscript, Pleasures of the Bear, was a finalist for prizes from both Moon City Press and Glass Lyre Press. It is still looking for a publisher.

Find her online at: www.thepoetrysalon.com