Daughter song
Richelle Buccilli
The tired evening empties its pockets like a father. The portrait of his two daughters on
the dresser leans like a church never entered. The dresser has antique handles, six
drawers full of secrets and screws. His skin is the color of heat so hot it turns purple, the
inner flesh of horse thighs and a lamb’s tongue. Whoever said that a man who is
thunder can’t also be rain isn’t listening. I’m becoming the pocket he empties. I’m
hanging on by blue jeans and a belt, circled and curling like withered wings on the
concrete. Forgotten flight. Faithful fears. This song is broken like patchwork of stone,
etched in by what grows despite rock, despite hardened skin. Tonight the moon will
dress me in light and silk the color of moth, it will feed me dreams made of feathers and
the fox licking its wound.
Richelle Buccilli holds a BA in Creative Writing from Seton Hill University and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Yes Poetry, The Main Street Rag, Rogue Agent, and Wicked Alice, among others. She lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and their almost two-year-old son.