Except the Birds

“Yes, I do have a bird on my shoulder,” the officer said.
“How long has it been there?” I asked.
“So long,” the officer said. And he left.

“Do I have a bird on my shoulder?” a different officer asked.
“Yes, you do,” I said. I didn’t ask her
how long it had been there.
“Well,” the officer said, “I thought as much.”
“As much as what?” I asked.
“As much as you wanted me to.”
I did not understand that last bit.
But no one here understands anything,
so I will just move on. Maybe I’ll find
a bird to land on my shoulder.

I remember good friend Jeremy who
explained the meanings of birds.
I never believed him; I told him the birds
are important but that we
don’t find meaning in them–they
put all the meaning into us.
Yet still, no one knows what we mean.

While Beneath Sunlight Shadows

While beneath sunlight shadows, and inside them, I will tell you the most curious story. About bluebells; but really about delivering heartsick angels into the hook-like fingers of trees frosted over. This story will be comforting, because frosted trees are immaculately melancholy, and you know that, well, you know that melancholy soothes what’s inside us.

I will take you into sunlight shadows. This is a dance, you know, to tiptoe on shapes of things without stepping on the things themselves. Unless the shadows are the things themselves. And sunlight shadows? What are they? Alive? –yet not living.

Careful, this doesn’t make sense if you think about it.
Take what comes as you read–swiftness of sunlight, shiftiness of shadows, hooks of ice trees, something about angels–this is what I mean by “melancholy”:

You’ve walked into a spider’s single-thread bridge that spanned from a telephone pole to a bush. It lingered horizontal in the air, saving itself by sticking to your sweater. That soft crystal thread, bending upwards now like a deep inhalation—that is melancholy and that is what you feel, not necessarily see. Discover the soft crystal spiderweb thread somewhere, approximately behind your diaphragm, swaying against your stomach. Soft as a kiss, it latches onto your heart, or your rib—a hint at something important, something that will stay forever delicate.

This is a collision of what I mean to say and what I have said. A crystalline thread of melancholy, really about bluebells, about invisibility, really, and delivery.

We Would Become The After-Rain Sidewalk Scent

The word purple is irksome,
but that’s alright–this morning
has faded from pure purple to
periwinkle and lavender.
Anyways, I could always say
the colour is “blue mixed with red.”

Spring rain amuses me. Not only
for the tickling sound, but also for
its ability to vacate the sidewalk in
pleasant slithers.

As to the purpleness of the sidewalk,
let’s call it iris grey. I think
we could all improve by staring
at it for a while,
catching fragments of rainy cement scent
while catching our breath.

Carol Anne Lives Inside a Brick

Carol Anne lives inside a brick; however,
she does not like brick red so she paints it blue,
navy blue. Have you
visited her yet? She likes to visit with
guests who stare out the window who
let her talk about her cricket collection.

Coughing into coffee, what time is it, not
time for coughing–go away, Carol Anne
does not want to get sick.

Her brick house is not a brick inside. It is a room
inspired by brick. Textured, warm, uniform yet
unique.

Come back, you are better, she
wants to give you a sweater. She
wants to seat you by the window,
to count how many seconds your eyes stare
at nothing, really. To count how many minutes
you will dream about navy blue sunshine.

Kicking Gravel, We Never Left Childhood

My childhood lived on the unreliable arteries of rain gutters.
Stuttering leaves would remind me that wind is cool but wind
is also rough. I carefully kicked a piece of gravel all the way home. I asked
the clover growing through the sidewalk cracks: “Do you
get headaches, staring so long into the sun?” They did not answer.

“Yes,” you answered.

Why did you answer; you
are not a clover.

I wish I could copy and paste your “yes.” I wish I could apply it
to more complex issues; to transcribe your old, positive response
to modern, dismal questions.

Neither of us are clovers. Both of us still kick gravel back to our homes.

You Should Not–But You Can–Take All That You Want

Eight large gulps, you finally pull the glass away, some
water trickling from the corners of your mouth.

And it’s strange, when you are so thirsty and your throat gulps and gulps and
your stomach says please stop I am full I cannot take so much at once —
and yet your throat keeps gulping. Which do you obey, the stomach
or the throat? For you must choose whether or not to bring your hand to the
glass of water, to carry it to your mouth, to ask your wrist to tip the glass,
to tilt your head back slightly, to move your lips out of the way. Yes, you
must choose which to heed, throat or stomach.
The throat demands more water; the stomach feels so desperate to close itself off.

You stand in the kitchen, water dripping from your chin, glass half raised,
indecision.

Charming

“In our minds, I think we always write about snakes.”
Derek shook his head. “Livvy, why would you say that?”
“Because I know you do not like snakes, and I know that
you need to talk about them more.”
Again Derek shook his head. He liked Livvy, but he did not
like Livvy’s allusive manner of conversing, sometimes.

“Derek, come over here.”
They leaned over the porch railing.
The wind blew Livvy’s hair into Derek’s face;
he playfully trapped it between his lips.
“Derek, what are they?”
“Hmm?”
“The snakes you write about.”
He released the hair and said, “Livvy,
that’s the thing. I write about them because
I do not talk about them, because I cannot
talk about them. I don’t always know
what they are. A sheet of paper is like a pit, and
as I write I glimpse into the pit. That’s when I find
what vipers live inside my head.”

Livvy nodded, frowning. She turned to Derek, softly
gathered his hands, traced words onto his skin.
“Now not only snakes are within,” Livvy said. “Now,
through writing, you can recall something soft,
something kind, something
that will charm even the cruelest of snakes.”

Eating in January

I was never one to dote on January,
not until that night.
Now I want every January to pile up
all over me, inside me.

Oh, right, how rude–I forgot to tell you
what happened:
Two people knocked on my door. One said,
“Come outside,” the other said, “You are
missing an icing sunset.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I slipped
out and joined them in the frosted twilight.

The sugar sky, the smooth bends of icing clouds,
I was in awe. I thanked the two people and
went back into my room, baked a cake,
ran back outside–but the sun had finished setting.
The icing clouds were gone. I was left with
a plain chocolate cake. The stars said, “Here,
we’ll help you,” and the Milky Way fell down as
a layer of powdered sugar and I said, “thank you,”
and my tongue said, “thank you,” and I went to bed
filled with stars.

Sometimes the Universe Doesn’t Care for Talking

The Ibsen play is happening this evening. “It’s really interesting. You
know A Doll’s House? Well, it’s similar. But different. And it’s shocking.
Because she leaves–how could she do that?–I don’t know if I want to spoil it.
It’s complex.” The director sits back, finished talking. I stand to leave.

I say goodbye to the director. Then I say goodbye to the evening, for
I am skipping that time of day altogether–I have a meeting with
the universe, you see. I have some ideas I want to run by it, and
they are best discussed at night. So goodbye to this evening, goodbye
and remember: the universe can’t really talk.

“When you face it, you won’t want to talk, either,” I remind myself.
“The meeting will be strange. And the meeting will be perfect. You know
how it is, how spaces without words often hold the most meaning.”

Roadside Graffiti, Staining My Teeth

The philosopher’s graffiti fills my head;
every September I memorize
another line of nonsense.

“If you have words, give
them up. They will fail you
in the end.”

It was someone talking. But
I don’t believe in “in the end,”
so I won’t give up these words.

Ink licks everything,
nothing’s left white. To save
my teeth from ink, please,
let me buy some strawberries.
They will colour my teeth before
the ink takes over.

I’ll buy them from the roadside lady who smiles
through thousands of dusty wrinkles.