Poetry Week 2026 Second-place winner:
BY ALLISON BOTHLEY
Copyright is held by the author.
Some mornings before I shoulder myself into the woods,
I pocket birdseed.
I say it’s because I love birds,
but really, it’s because I want something alive to choose me.
To see me and say: yes, that soft vessel,
that cracked cathedral of a woman is safe.
I want to be the understory’s psalm.
A mess of millet.
I want a bird
with a heart like a blistered almond
to land on me and think
I am the beginning of something.
The chickadees come sometimes
like sorrow, like joy.
Brief and repeating.
They land.
Flit away.
I say this is what love is.
I say it until I believe.
Their dee-dee-dees tell me
how afraid they are.
One dee means they almost trust me
and almost is my religion.
***
Allison Bothley is a writer and recovering MFA (The New School) who lives in Ontario, Canada. Her work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, White Wall Review, Sad Girl Diaries, The Literary Review of Canada, and elsewhere. Allison is the creator and publisher of Bangs Zine, an independent space hot for big feelings, emerging writers, and lazy Sunday readers. Connect with her @allisonbothleywrites.
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