April Lindner
Black Feathers
It’s time to stoop and gather up black feathers
from corners of the run we built, its sides
a type of chain mail meant to bar the most
determined predator. One found the only
hole we missed, squeezed small and burrowed in
to stun our pullets one by one—the chicks
we named and trained to trust our clumsy hands
as if our care could keep them safe. This morning
a stillness tipped me off to what I’d find.
Though we spent hours fashioning this fortress,
death outspent us, fueled by one sure thing:
it would outlast us, worming its way in.
April Lindner is the author of two poetry collections—Skin (winner of the Walt McDonald First Book Prize from Texas Tech University Press) and This Bed Our Bodies Shaped (Able Muse Press). She edited and co-edited a number of anthologies including Contemporary Catholic Poetry (Paraclete Press), Contemporary American Poetry (Penguin Academics) and Lineas Conectadas (Sarabande Books). She also is the author of three young adult novels, Jane, Catherine, and Love, Lucy, all published by Poppy/Little, Brown Young Reader. A professor of English at Saint Joseph’s University, she lives in Stockton, New Jersey.
