This afternoon, I attended a poetry reading by Kelli Russell Agodon. The second half of the program was an exercise in writing ekphrastic poetry—i.e., poetry about art. This poem is based on Joseph Cornell’s The Fortune Telling Parrot.

‘You must be feeling so confined’,
I thought.
The stillness was unsettling,
the confines of the chamber rigid.

‘You’d be surprised’,
he replied.
‘It may not seem like much,
but at least I have a place to be.’

I guess even ghosts have homes,
regardless of the forms they take.

(11 October 2014)