Lucy Alexander #84 Naked Song

My mother was a currawong

with sleek black feathers

trimmed with white

and a beak that broke down bones

cracked through lizard hide

pointed the way through mazed tree tops

and curved snarling down at the corners.

She kept her yellow eyes closed in hours of darkness

to keep their colour

and sharpened them on everything I did in the daylight.

When she sang her voice was ringing

setting the sun just so or calling up morning

with the single swoop to song, cadence almost finished -

but not quite. Her own naked name, over and over

until to hear it meant nothing

and that was her tragedy.