by Max Cavitch
Cardinal
On the rim of a twig cup
braced in wisteria
itself tangled in the rails of ladder
two birds
dip over the interior frenzy,
silence the outstretch
with beak-captive insects.
The unlived life within me
vaults to the branch.
Kelly Madigan has received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Distinguished Artist Award from the Nebraska Arts Council. Her work has appeared in 32 Poems, Terrain.org, Prairie Schooner, Flyway and Calyx. Her books include The Edge of Known Things (SFASU Press) and Getting Sober (McGraw-Hill.) kmadigan.com.
Max Cavitch is a photographer, writer, and teacher living in Philadelphia. His photographs have appeared in publications including Al-Tiba9 Contemporary Art, The Journal of Wild Culture, phoebe, and Politics/Letters and have been exhibited most recently at the Blank Wall Gallery (Athens), the Chania International Photo Festival (Crete), Art Room Gallery, and the Biennale di Senigallia, Senigallia (Italy). For several years, he has been a contributing photographer for the public-science project, iNaturalist. A number of his photographs will also appear in his new book, Ashes: A History of Thought and Substance, forthcoming from Punctum Books in 2025.