The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: These Hollowed Bones by Amelia Díaz Ettinger

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Jacob Jardel, is from These Hollowed Bones by Amelia Díaz Ettinger (Sea Crow Press 2024).

Sparrow Hawk and The Nester

         Fálco sparvérius

I nearly reached the water
the longest and shortest
journey— even if I have a thousand
legs in all

mornings were full of dew
at first, I didn’t perish,
so many died before
my brothers and sisters
did they climb the grasses
to take a drink?

the thirst in my pinchers
was deep, but I wondered
what a full swig of water
be? Would it be green
and taste of pollen?

thinking these water thoughts
pierced the worry of the Kestrel
—that Sparrow Hawk
flying so close by me day by day
I thought of those droplets
and imagined collecting each one
if I could burden the big water in me

the rest came in a mushroom
it was hollowed by age’s decay
just a moment for a dream
of currents and rain and joy
the fullness of lichens
bathed in moisture
and tiny spiders that taste of glory

now my body waxes and wanes
others will get there first
so I settle to watch that kestrel
finally take her requite

Amelia Díaz Ettinger’s (she/her) poetry and short stories have been published in anthologies, literary magazines, and periodicals. She is the author of two chapbooks and four books of poetry. She has an MS in Biology and MFA in creative writing. Her literary work is a marriage of science and her experience as an immigrant.

Jacob Jardel (he/they) is a CHamoru writer, scholar, and educator born in Guåhan (Guam), raised in California and Oklahoma, and currently based in Kansas City. He’s currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Humanities with a focus in English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. A former Editor for The Sosland Journal and The Central Dissent, his work has appeared in The 580 Mixtapes Vol. 1, Fanachu’s Voices of the Diaspora zine, and No. 1 Magazine. He is also a member of the Garden Party Collective, through which he published his poetry chapbook Full-Blooded CHamaole in 2024. Online, Jacob lives at his website itsjacobj.com, on Instagram and Threads @itsjacobj, and sometimes on BlueSky @itsjacobj.bsky.social. Offline, he lives with his partner, his cat, and his ever-growing board game and Magic the Gathering collection.