By Ada Limón

When the ten-speed, lightweight bicycle broke down off the highway lined thick with orange trees, I noticed a giant raven’s head protruding from the waxy leaves. The bird was stuck somehow, mangled in the branches, crying out. Wide-eyed, I held the bird’s face close to mine. Beak to nose. Dark brown iris to dark brown iris. Feather to feather. This was not the Chihuahuan raven or the fantailed raven or the common raven. Nothing was common about the way we stared at one another while a stranger untangled the bird’s claws from the tree’s limbs and he, finally free, became a naked child swinging in the wind.

Poet Bio

Ada Limón earned an MFA from New York University, and is the recipient of fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including The New Yorker, The Harvard Review, Pleiades, and Barrow Street. Limón splits her time between Kentucky, California, and New York. See More By This Poet

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