![\"sandra-beasley.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/sandra-beasley.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nPreparation is the art of leaving lines in:
\nbefore you can make that crane you must
\ninvert the valley, low right to high left.
\nThen you must base the bird, pulling
\ninside out, outside to middle, and up.
\nFlip. Repeat. Crease those legs.
\nReverse the fold. Define her neck,
\ndefine her tail, run the bone knife flat.
\nDip each wing down and pull them
\napart, flattening her back. If she means
\nto stay by your dinner plate, press your
\nmouth to that belly and push the air in.
\nIf she means to fly, grip her head and tail,
\npull so she flaps in the sky of your palm.
\nIf she’s good luck, thread a sharp needle
\nand hang her with her thousand sisters.
\nWhen she laughs it is only a crab scuttling
\nthe length of that gullet. When she cries
\nit is only the weeping of rice against stone.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nI Was the Jukebox<\/i><\/a> is the second collection from Sandra Beasley<\/a>, who also runs the blog Chicks Dig Poetry<\/i><\/a>. Washington, D.C., residents can meet her this Saturday at “Writing the Future<\/a>,” a one-day conference at Bethesda’s Writers Center on “the transitions and innovations taking place in the literary and publishing worlds.” (I sort of wish I was in on that action, but I guess I can’t go to every<\/i> future of publishing conference in America!)<\/p>\n
Three more poems from this collection appeared in Agni<\/i>: “I Don’t Fear Death<\/a>,” “Love Poem for Wednesday<\/a>,” and “My God<\/a>.” Poetry<\/i> published “Unit of Measure<\/a>” last summer. Oh, speaking of “I Don’t Fear Death,” Beasley has created a video for it:<\/p>\n