By Madeline Mulkerrins
At the river’s edge, a group of whooping cranes leap in a circle, aiming their beaks up to the satellites. Google says it’s a bonding ritual. There are rules hung up where you can’t see them, behind the barbed wire. Everyone’s got bolt cutters now. You must crawl under the fence. So far, you know the gore-slick road carved down your spine. So far, parasite-riddled soil is living under your nails. Blink straight and slow, say your Good morning’s like fingertips grazing beads, lie often, read the teleprompter script, gift hollow apologies, scream only down deep wells in empty fields at the edge of the world. You wish your cracked teeth had bits of hard candy tucked in their ridges. You wish the cranes taught you how to never stop dancing.
Madeline Mulkerrins is a junior at Carroll University in Wisconsin. Her writing themes tend to be grief, isolation, and nature. This would be her first published poem.
Academy of the Heart And Mind 