If I am a Bird

Poetry, Megan Jauregui Eccles

Your letter came to me

as a sparrow that I unfolded

to read each word

Ink and blood

and feather and bone

The whisper beat of a tiny heart

soon to cease

Do you know the way your skin

unmakes me, that I would die

rather than give you up

Mulberries and iron

and wine and thistle

Your breath like a ship

drifting in the night

I write my love for you on the wings

of atlas moths and guide them

towards the light

Glitter and tea-leaves

and poppies and lace

Burn away the parts of me

that are not you

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Megan Jauregui Eccles lives in the foothills of San Diego and is a writer, poet, and professor. When she’s not rehoming rattlesnakes, she plays Dungeons and Dragons with her five sons and hatches a variety of poultry. She holds an MFA in Fiction from UCR—Palm Desert. www.meganeccles.com