How to Draw a Swallow
My birth mother sends me a letter
hand-written on the back of a set of printed
instructions: How to Draw a Swallow.
A retired art teacher, she often mails
odds and ends, pretty things.
You start with the body,
sort of an upside-down teardrop,
move on to the tail feathers,
follow with the head.
The wings come last.
I hope the nuns were kind to her,
explained about God and forgiveness.
Young, alone, she wouldn’t know
that years later, she would marry
and bear another—a boy
who I would meet one day
for breakfast burritos in the Mission,
and we’d visit the Church of St. John Coltrane,
where an usher would turn to us and say,
“Are you two brother and sister?”
Pulling out my sketch pad, I draw lump
after lump—twiggy feet, blobby beaks.
I Google ‘how to draw a swallow,’
surprised by the infinite ways to breathe life
into being, none as lovely as hers.
Diana Donovan lives in Mill Valley, California. In 2021, she received nominations for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her work has recently appeared in California Quarterly, Chestnut Review, Eastern Iowa Review, and The Lindenwood Review.