Hawk Shadow/Heroines [edit]

[Alic Elliot]

Hawk Shadow/Heroines


Late Sunday morning biking west
I noticed that my shadow had grown wings
not massive pinions, smaller ones
like a parrot’s on my pirate shoulder
or (they moved around)
winged helmet of a Wagner Valkyrie ~ these last two lines a bit hard to read.
Excellent shift.
    Male Valkyries -
    what slain would they choose,
    which women, dead, raise up is the wording purposeful? Because I can understand that. 
    in strong, impassioned but unforcing arms?
    Perhaps those heroines who die
    in single combat pitting mother and her child
    against the closing circle,
    to bear and to be born? This take on childbirth, and comparing it to a battle, makes me happy.
    Their man-formed Valkyrie would lift them up
    not to eternal roistering
    but tea and calm conversations
    with others who had died in childbirth
    and sweet spirits of their stillborn bairns bairns is a bit obscure.. And by obscure I mean this is the first time I've ever seen this word in my entire life. I love new vocabulary, though.
    meeting, too, those born alive
    they never lived to greet.

~ the shadow bird kept pace.
I never turned to look:
he’d have been hidden in the sun
as my lazily pursuing hawk
meant it to be. Thus completing the winged shadow imagery. Good job, there.

You get strange visions from a little oxygen debt.

I offer very little in critique, as there isn't much I don't like about this. The wording is a little funky, but that's it. Excellent job with the shifts, by the way. Going from reality to wondering fantasy and back to reality like you did was a great read.