Silence of The Lambs: A Starling Is Born

By REILLY D. COX

CLARICE
All his victims are women…
His obsession is women, he lives to hunt women.
But not one woman is hunting him—except me.
I can walk into a woman’s room
and know three times as much about her as a man would.

 

A starling catches me in a dress
and pierces my chest two times,
deeply, and I cannot blame her.

She’s right:
I was such an ugly bird.

She says that any bird raised as a boy
is conditioned as a boy and cannot ever
change that, and I don’t correct her.

If boyhood is a circle of boys above me
stomping purple flowers into me,
then I’ve known such a wondrous boyhood.

And if I say, I did not ask to be born a bird,
she wouldn’t hear me anyway.

There’s already a flock of them,
reducing my nest to sticks again.

And they will call me by a name,
but it won’t be mine.

 

Reilly D. Cox is an MFA candidate at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, where they served as design editor for Black Warrior Review. They attended Washington College and the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets. They have work available or forthcoming in Nat. Brut, Always Crashing, Juked, Cosmonauts Avenue, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere.

[Purchase Issue 19 here.] 

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

Silence of The Lambs: A Starling Is Born

Related Posts

Image of a tomato seedling

Talks with the Besieged: Documentary Poetry from Occupied Ukraine  

ALEX AVERBUCH
Russians are already in Starobilsk / what nonsense / Dmytrovka and Zhukivka – who is there? / half a hundred bears went past in the / direction of Oleksiivka / write more clearly / what’s the situation in Novoaidar? / the bridge by café Natalie got blown up / according to unconfirmed reports

A Tour of America

MORIEL ROTHMAN-ZECHER
This afternoon I am well, thank you. / Walking down Main Street in Danville, KY. / The heavy wind so sensuous. / Last night I fell- / ated four different men back in / Philadelphia season lush and slippery / with time and leaves. / Keep your eyes to yourself, yid. / As a kid, I pledged only to engage / in onanism on special holidays.

cover for "True Mistakes" by Lena Moses-Schmitt

Giving the Poem a Body: Megan Pinto interviews Lena Moses-Schmitt

LENA MOSES-SCHMITT
I think sometimes movement can be used to show how thought is made manifest outside the body. And also just more generally: when you leave the house, when you are walking, your thoughts change because your environment changes, and your body is changing. Moving is a way of your consciousness interacting with the world.