Flight Behavior Along the I-44 Corridor


​Backyard chimes please no one     finches preen in water ratcheted
to the henbit lawn     white-crowned sparrows can’t blunt testimony
from today’s seminar on sex trafficking, a robin tilts her head to a worm
nine foster homes before she ran. Pimp called her Birdie after the paper
cranes she made from fast food napkins     mom showed her the folds
when she was ten     Birdie wrote her name on floppy wings,
left her tocsins in truck stop restrooms.     I want to say that’s how
she was found     blue jay to a nest in ropey ivy vines     I want to say
her name is Olivia Quinn Woods, one I handpicked for resilient girls
red flasher to a hickory     cardinal to mate.     I need to proclaim
origami saved her, but some lies like wounds won’t close.
S. Erin Batiste
Jules Jacob is a contemporary poet and court-appointed child advocate with work featured or forthcoming in Plume, The Rappahannock Review, Plume Poetry 8, Glass, Rust + Moth, Mom Egg Review, and elsewhere. She’s the author of The Glass Sponge (Finishing Line Press) with select poems showcased at the Colorado Gallery of the Arts and the Virginia Center for the Creative Art’s Le Moulin à Nef in France. 
Art: Creative Commons