“Birdcage” is a standard love poem about contractions found within our most intimate relationships.  I wanted to speak to fears of being seen within community, and the eventual balm of age; that becoming seasonal and affected by the ferns and hermit thrushes, one finds home in simply being in your body, wrapped up in arms and forest.

Kelly Gray is a writer and educator living on unceded Coast Miwok land, deep in the redwoods. Her work has appeared in Southern Humanities Review, Rust + Moth, Portland Review, and elsewhere.

W: writekgray.com
I: @_west_of_west