2017
POETRY OPEN
Honorable Mention
$25 Award
FAMILY AFFAIR
by Lisa Starr

Later, after I’ve found a suitable spot
for the baby goldfinch with the puncture
in its chest from my cat’s claw,
enfolding it in a hedge of white lilac
which blossomed three weeks late,
perhaps just to lend some grace to this moment,
I am still thinking about the size of its mortal wound—
barely noticeable—the size of a hang-nail, or a tick—
which gets me wondering about the size of the tick
that killed Brother—the dog that the cat
and I are still grieving, and learning to live without.
And I walk to the hedge, and I retrieve the bird,
and cupping it against the place where it feels like
my heart is, I walk to Brother’s grave,
and lay it down there, on top of him,
and then I sit down next to it.
I’m not sure how long the cat has been sitting there,
on the other side of me, before I notice her.
I only know that in that moment,
we were a family—
the dead dog, the dead bird, the cat, and me.
______________________________
Lisa Starr was Rhode Island’s Poet Laureate from 2007-2013. She founded and directed the Block Island Poetry Project and is a former recipient of the Rhode Island Fellowship in Poetry. Starr has published three books of poetry, including Mad With Yellow, her most recent. She also co-edited the anthology Where Beach Meets Ocean. After living on Block Island for 30 years, where she ran a 10-room inn (The Hygeia House) and raised her children, Starr has happily relocated to Westerly, RI where she is working on a memoir (“Writer Inn-terrupted”) and a new book of poems, which are all about children.
April 2017