Daniela Ochoa

Poem for the Bird that Keeps Shitting on My Balcony

With wings blue, and a hat made of
not wool, but leather.
With wings blue, and a heart made of
not flesh, but juice.
With wings blue, and a beak orange,
and an eye black, and that’s a lie,
I’ve only focused on the wings blue
and how you leave.

Love me, Free Bird that sits
on the tree looking like an omelet.
Love me, Free Bird that screams
like a lamb—don’t you know
you’re a singer?

Free Bird, you can take on the horizon
and you don’t have to give your tiny
chicken juice-heart away.

Do you love my tree because it’s mine or
because it’s there?

 

Mama, One Day I 

Promise to make you a canoe from my rib, turn
my browning heart into a pendant, and my name into a vow.

We carry the same nouns, churn butter, and stuff you until you can’t eat
more—sing your favorite songs over
and over and over until there is not a
quiet moment in your life.

I’ll sew you a quilt, it’ll take a while—
steal you a piece of land and tell the colonizers to
fuck off because it’s our turn, because we’re
stuck with the Orange Man, and back where we’re from
peace isn’t free either.  

Mama, are you in there?
Where we’re going we don’t need anybody,
just don’t keep
your eyes closed.

Mama look at the house you’re gonna live
in when I sell my first limb. 

I’m sun-dried, but don’t stutter for a
second, stay seated—don’t succumb,
you shed weak layers,
your core made of quartz:
an unshatterable, impenetrable, impregnable woman.

Mama, I’ve been meaning to call you to let you know I crumble.