Let These Birds Out by Katie Cavallucci is a thesis project for the Master of Arts in Creative Writing Program. Here we have a collection of free verse poetry with a focus on the familiar, on what “home” means. It is inspired by the raw, often vicious words of Richard Siken, the eloquent yet brazen honesty of Maggie Smith, and the optimistic, poignant observations of Mary Oliver. This thesis paints portraits and captures the essence of existence in a small town; it conveys evolving attitudes toward friendship, family, spirituality, and the imminent end of everything. It may be seen as an ode to optimistic nihilism and embracing the immediate world around us. As Abraham Maslow says, “To be looking elsewhere for miracles is to me a sure sign of ignorance that everything is miraculous.? Let These Birds Out communicates, overall, an adoration for being alive in an ordinary place.
Homebody
by Katie Cavallucci
Everyone I know goes fast-paced, citybound,
or flees south, weary of frosts, snow drifts.
I do not budge; I will not visit; they think
I’m trapped. But here I can fall asleep to the
broken fluorescent streetlamp flickering outside
my window. I can weave between the dips
in the yard with my eyes closed. In my house
I can walk down the stairs in the dark.
There’s a pattern to everything if you put
your face right up to it, if you feel it slowly
under your fingertips. In town I know where all
the potholes are. I know where the deer stand
wide-eyed, waiting to dart into traffic.
There is the camp, where I worked. There
is the library, where I worked. There is the bridge,
where a woman jumped into the river. I know
how the water will pool on Main Street after rainfall.
There is the cemetery, where six people I know
are buried. There is the restaurant, where I worked.
There is the church, where I wanted to die; the
church, where I was bored; the church, where I worked.
Elsewhere, nothing belongs to me. The roads are
unpredictable and the strands of willow leaves
are defying gravity. At the bottom of my street
the maple tree is the same every year. I don’t know
how to explain it but the traffic lights all stay
green for me. Here is all my painful mortality;
I plan to stay and die in this valley. Here I know
how the sunlight falls, where it is warm, where it
burns. I am learning to grow herbs on the back patio.
I can make my marigolds last for months. My
oldest friends are all in love and moving away
and now strangers are living in their houses.
I went out this morning and got my garden watered.
The hummingbirds come more often now.
My rosemary is getting taller.
Entropy
by Katie Cavallucci
I wait at the edge of your wingspan. I want to fold you inward, head to shoulder, palm to cheek. Fingertips pressed to the extra rib, the hunched neck. You do not like to be touched.
As children we ached at being human. Like overlooked animals, we were not socialized properly. I did not anticipate we would grow up and hurt any less. I did not anticipate we would grow up.
Listen. I have to get this down now or the words will be gone by morning. Everyone you love has no idea how much you love them. I am trying to tell you something.
To be a person is all pretend. We exist at the edge of other people’s souls. We are flesh and elemental frames and we just want to breathe and move and make art.
You hold all my strangest secrets and I yours. You are unfairly yourself. When I met you I saw imminent cataclysm and did not look away. I think you were made for another world.
Listen. We are skeletons in envelopes and I am trying to tell you something. I will take you as you are. We are dividing cells sinking into disarray.
All this labor and money and civilization and playing at personhood means nothing. I think you were made for another world. We’re all wrapped up in this entropy.
Earth vibrates its way toward the highest point of chaos and we are only making art. In the collapse we will lighten. In the collapse I will embrace you.