anticipating flame

“anticipating flame” by Garnet Juniper Bennet is the second runner-up of the 2024-25 Previously Published Poem Prize, selected by Palette editors. We’re honored to share this pertinent poem with you.

This poem was first published in Qwerty, issue 48.

after reading the news

The nest is under attack, or so assumes the crow
who corkscrews her way through the air toward
the bored-looking eagle perched, it seems, too close
on the tree outside our window. She cries as she tumbles,
but my lover does not wake to this. If I’m honest,
I don’t want them to. Not yet. If they never
know how close we are to danger, how near
destruction lingers, what’s the difference? The nest
is under attack, but this is nothing new to the rest of us.
While the crow continues to insist to any who will listen The nest
is under attack! my love does not wake and I must
come to accept this. Only one of us need witness
the clashing of chances this morning: the dogs at it again
on either side of the fence, immune to all introductions
and attempts at diplomacy, each convinced the nest—
their home—is under attack. Most people are awake,
probably, as the new neighbor is also doing his mowing.
In the bedroom, the air conditioner moderates the temperature
as if it aspires to one day become a garbage disposal.
Elsewhere, a complicated situation is developing;
violence is always someplace distant, until it isn’t.
The air ripples with tension and chaos and the nest
is not nearly the only thing under attack this morning,
but the crow does not know this. Eventually, the eagle
shrugs open its wings and dives from the tree,
stoic in its casual retreat. The crow follows,
pursuing, leaving a hollow space in the air as her shrieks
fade into ambience. I don’t know if we’ll survive
whatever losses remain for us, who we’ll turn to
when conflict evolves into conflagration, but we’re near
past the time for warning signs. When my love doesn’t wake
before me, beset with troubles, who am I to bring the world
into our bed? As the nest comes under attack, let me
lose a feather or two in defense of what I know is true:
not all nests are rebuildable. I’ve also heard that eagles
are territorial and prevent other predators from attacking
nests of more vulnerable birds that sometimes take their rest
among lower branches or, like herons, form whole colonies
beneath the eagles’ roost. They’re used to losing a chick or two
for the privilege of protection. I don’t know whether I am
a heron or a crow. Today, many of us woke up with less
than yesterday. When my partner wakes, I need not mention this.
They will know implicitly, probably the same way everyone can
tell today is warmer than it’s ever been, the way feverish flesh
anticipates the flame between the match’s strike and immolation.