supplicants at the augury
depending on the reading of the birds
or the waters are calm or
today they lash at us like iced whips
still, the film over our eyes
(oh how it is to be deprived)
our hands fingering the air
and the singing all kinds of it
they float in the fore
like mums around the crowns
of happy girls
fast action-ers, last chancers
clothed in lack; loathe cloaks
they are holy halos, hat fasteners,
or the wail of a siren, far, far aft
Amy McNamara is a writer and photographer in Brooklyn, New York. Her poems have appeared in Barrow Street, Conduit, jubilat, Linebreak, The Literary Review, and elsewhere. She sometimes blogs at paperbuttersugarprint. contact
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