Me the Meteorite, My Father the Dead Bird

Me the Meteorite, My Father the Dead Bird Brandi Nicole Martin (bio) Once, when I stopped hurtinglong enough to exist in my wheelchairfor more than four minutes, I inchedto the kitchen, jostling my injuriesbut wanting my mother to seeI still treasured the lifeshe'd given me. That I was sorryto have walked it so recklessly.I've been told not to writeabout how pathetic I felt, lest anyone thinkI wasn't brought back miraculously.I'm tall now. I hidestaple scars with boots and jeans.Isn't it obvious that a lyric lineabout the body will be followedby epiphany and awe? A neuron fizzleslike the helicoidal path of star. Blah blah.A metallic body that survivesour fiery atmosphere is givena new name, and my story hurtles like that,a pitched baseball of blistering gasso all I can do is look to the sky,palm my mouth, and step back.For generations, the women in my familyappear black-eyed on doorsteps, bleedingfrom nostrils, lips, teeth, or elsethey leave a note and take their shitto a field and then we're left with bedside,visiting hours, the gator lurking underneathso all that's visible are its ripples.My femurs moonlit onscreen.The albatross around my neckI call Reid. My story waiting to strike. End Page 73 Blast radius of a single night.You're going to wantto close your eyes. End Page 74 Brandi Nicole Martin Brandi Nicole Martin's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Boston Review, The Missouri Review, The Cincinnati Review, Narrative Magazine, Alaska Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, Colorado Review, and Willow Springs, among others. Her creative nonfiction has previously appeared in Boulevard. She was a runner-up for the 2020 Jeffrey E. Smith Editor's Prize from The Missouri Review and an honorable mention for the 2023 Ploughshares Emerging Writer's Contest. She is a writer with disabilities who holds a PhD from Florida State University. Copyright © 2024 Pleiades and Pleiades Press