The priest talks of gardens
but doesn’t grow fruit.
Oh, the mess song
birds make. Someday
they will go to seed,
sprout, and shoot.
sprout, and shoot.
A white lab mouse
released into the woods
doesn’t have the sense to run.
Instinct
bred out,
it slips, head first
like the priest into collar and gold
embroidery with almond
nails, my grandmother calls
lazy. The film of incense
a tiny fire. all of it
preserved prayer
in the pellet of the owl.
Monica Rico is a Mexican American CantoMundo Fellow, Macondista, and Hopwood Graduate Poetry Award winner who grew up in Saginaw, Michigan. She holds an MFA from the University of Michigan’s HZWP and works for the Bear River Writers’ Conference. Her manuscript PINION is the winner of the 2021 Four Way Books Levis Prize in Poetry selected by Kaveh Akbar.
- Monica Rico
