Fall 2009, Volume 7

Poetry by Nicelle C. Davis
Born Again
  (A recreated report from The Toronto Star, April 30, 2001)

It was as if his mouth was full of bread—
he couldn't push out words, his mother said,
could no longer bathe or feed himself,

Sometimes his eyes              bulged.
Sometimes one eye stayed    shut.                               

He ate burgers roughly twice
a week. By summer, he had trouble holding up
his head. Walking talking                                   
                   almost possible.

That's in April, his father said of a picture—
19, curled like a baby in his father's
arms. He could only speak a few words.                                                                                           
When held in the water,                                                     
he said,                                                                           
Thank you dad. Thank you mom.

As Songs Can Travel Past Their Singers, I Hope This Finds You

When she knew you were in her,
she clawed at her skin in a cold
tub waiting for her red rivers
to run clean. In delirium she met
her Father, whose body was taken
off by the bed of a semi-truck
when she was five. He appeared
as a gathering of wings singing
I have yellow feathers to weave
into a dress for you. For you
she sent her father scattering
in a fractured migration. Her most
rooted desire she lifted above her
reach. She wouldn’t go where she
couldn’t take you. So she birthed
and left you where you can not
hear the song she sings. Try to
understand it is traveling a great
distance in a lineage of broken birds.

BIO: Nicelle C. Davis lives in Lancaster, California, with her husband James and their son J.J. She is currently a M.F.A. candidate at the University of California, Riverside. She teaches at Antelope Valley Community College.