Orb Weaver

As the wife, I have developed
A bad reputation,

Although in truth my nature is
Industrious and meek,

My nights and days tenderly spent
In domestic labor:

Caring for the two little ones,
A fragile construction

Of time, milk bottles, fortitude,
And imagination;

Imagining that he loves me
And will return from work

Inspired and obligated
By the cloud-thin netting

Of quiet, resigned affection
I have woven for him.

My fragile work holds us in place:
It is our home address.

And when he tears it carelessly,
With the back of the hand,

I consume the tangle of silk,
And set to work again.

*

White Bird

No-one remembers
To feed the bird in its cage,
A brush stroke of white

Watching turtle doves
Arrive and depart at ease –
No tether, no bars.

In a small mirror:
A reflection, companion
Unattainable.

Desires the size
Of horizons limited:
To the perch and back.

When we procured it,
You promised regular care,
Like a six-year-old,

Then quickly forgot,
Looking for more exotic –
White bird left behind.

I took up the job
Of feeding your abandoned
Every now and then.

To your wife the chores,
To you the purposeless thrill
Of the chase, the chase.

*

The Homecoming

Two springs after we left the house,
The turtle dove returned –

Morning song: a gentle flutter
Of blue-grey in the pines.

It came back when we stopped wishing
It back – as if it knew

That wanting can never equate
Having, and only flew

Back into the abandoned yard
Long after grass had gone

To seeds, relishing the silence,
The freedom only found

In hopeless, overgrown spaces.
(Hope really is a cage.)

And when I thought I’d lost it all,
He loved me once again.

*

Lorelei Bacht (she/they) is a person, a poet, queer, multi-, living in Asia. When she is not drawing sad little sketches, she writes – too much. Her work has appeared / is forthcoming in Anti-Heroin Chic, Visitant, The Wondrous Real, Abridged, Odd Magazine, Postscript, PROEM, SWWIM, Strukturriss, The Inflectionist Review, Hecate, and others. She is also on Instagram: @lorelei.bacht.writer and on Twitter @bachtlorelei