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In A Single Afternoon

by Daniella Pateman

I heard the bones of birds moving
in the raspberry bushes. No longer were they
winged choirs or earth angels, but small bodies
with veins and marrow and muscles
and stomachs swelling with the blood
and stretching with the skin of ripe berries.

I knelt in the center of the patch
half sinking- half rising and all around me
throats like apertures opening for the red light.
It was not an afternoon for communicating
with the gods, forewarning signs
of burning bushes or divination
but for children of a green humming earth.

All of us hid from the afternoon sun,
picking and eating and singing to ourselves.
The berries became so warm they passed
to liquid above us, an unexpected sun shower
that filled our pores.


Daniella Pateman’s first chapbook Drawing Blue Stones was published by Frog Hollow Press, which also regularly features her work on their website. She currently resides in Toronto.
 

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The Danforth Review is produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. All content is copyright of its creator and cannot be copied, printed, or downloaded without the consent of its creator. The Danforth Review is edited by Michael Bryson. Poetry Editors are Geoff Cook and Shane Neilson. Reviews Editors are Anthony Metivier (fiction) and Erin Gouthro (poetry). TDR alumnus officio: K.I. Press. All views expressed are those of the writer only. International submissions are encouraged. The Danforth Review is archived in the National Library of Canada. ISSN 1494-6114. 

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We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $19.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada. Nous remercions de son soutien le Conseil des Arts du Canada, qui a investi 19,1 millions de dollars l'an dernier dans les lettres et l'édition à travers le Canada.