Carole Greenfield

My fragile student leaves her glasses at home so as not to have to see the world in too clear focus, tells me when she was back home on the island, she looked out her grandmother's kitchen window in time to glimpse a large bird on its nest, a paloma, she said it was and I pulled up photos of mourning doves, wanted to say I know from these birds, how just the other day one attempted to perch on the house light by my front door, scrabbled about trying to gain purchase on the slick metal, gave up, fluttered over to the light on the other side, managed to right itself for a half-minute before wheeling off with that creaking sound they always make. I don't know what it means, but I recognize it, same way I identify the calls of cardinals, blue jays, robins, and crows. Just as you knew after our first conversation that you were for me and I for you, that I would become your little black dove, tu palomita negra. You write to say your neighborhood is full of tiny birds called 'fairy wrens', and I wonder are they that soft gray-brown, do they have burnt-orange chest feathers, are they quiet in color or bold, are they your kind of bird or mine?

Carole Greenfield grew up in Colombia and lives in New England, where she teaches multilingual learners at a public elementary school. Her work has appeared in The Manifest Station, Airplane Reading, Inscape Magazine, and other publications.