Pelican

Henrietta Goodman

Pelican

Piety? Not quite. The pelican, head bowed, neither prays nor vulns.
           She’s napping over her
Eggs, maybe, or vomiting a fish—there are limits to how badly
           anyone will wound herself for
Love. At least I hope there are. In heraldry—the shield, the spear,
           the coat of arms—or
In the cells and pods of Pelican Bay, the vulned bleed through
           armor’s seams. Not every pain is
Crucifixion, is it? Having sacrificed nothing, she floats with her
           pod on the slow current,
Alcatras absolved. What kind of freedom is this—bloodless,
           blameless, almost childless?
Not every anchor is a nail, is it? Nor every frame a cross.
           Nor every home a prison.
 

HENRIETTA GOODMAN is the author of three books of poetry: All  That Held Us, a sonnet-sequence published by BkMk Press in 2018 as winner of the John Ciardi Prize; Hungry Moon (Colorado State University, 2013); and Take What You Want (Beatrice Hawley Award, Alice James Books, 2007). Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in New Ohio Review, Terrain, The American Journal of Poetry, and other journals.