My Late Brother Appears on My Apple Watch
He is wearing bib overalls, an owl on his shoulder,
the literal ghost in the machine. An accidental tap
on its face, a quick twist of the wrist --
my watch dislodges my carefully calculated settings
and Edwin appears, fresh from my Favorites.
Every time I think ‘he’s been gone twenty years,’
it appears he finds a way to remind me:
we abide in everything, whether we like it or not –
just be sure to wear a leather glove on your hand
if the bird who chooses you has talons.
He and his great horned owl, me and my crows.
Our everyday familiars, never summoned but appearing,
hungry and sure about everything that matters --
bringing feathered peace that passes all understanding
and bony beaks that take all our unburnt offerings.
Judy Ireland is the author of Cement Shoes, a poetry collection that won the Sinclair Poetry Prize in 2013. Her poems have appeared in Hotel Amerika, Calyx, Saranac Review, Eclipse, Cold Mountain, Coe Review, SWWIM, the South Florida Poetry Journal, and other journals, as well as in several anthologies, including the Best Indie Lit New England anthology and Voices from the Fierce Intangible World. She is a Poetry Editor and Reading Series Producer for the South Florida Poetry Journal, Co-Director of Performance Poets of the Palm Beaches, and she teaches at Palm Beach State College.
Amethyst Review 