The calendar marred with birds and you are kik-kik-kik-kicking all the way into June.
180 days scratched with black X’s and crow’s feet: bird-of-two minds (goodandevil
goodandevil);
single-minded bird (plotting the sky).
__
♪ birds ♪ notorious ♪ birds ( ♪ ruffled feathers and fiendish ♪ )
Rain-divining ducks; rain-murderous blackbirds, hollering hollering from sunrise to sunrise.
Long day after longest day of wing-striped sky, sun eclipsed by feathers. Blue-black,
bruise-black,
antigen-tinged half moons under your eyes. Beleaguered just by thoughts
of countless birds, prospects of an entire summer riddled with peck-marks and quills ...
Even under closed eyes: oneiric birds; four stages of sleep, each one soaring you deeper
and deeper into raptor-psyche: Cooper's hawk, Red-tailed hawk, Black-shouldered kite
keep-keep-keep
... getting sleepy ... sleepier ...
Sylvia Legris, “4 Marked by Claws and Cloudburst,” from Nerve Squall. Copyright © 2006 by Sylvia Legris. Reprinted by permission of Coach House Books.
Source: Nerve Squall (Coach House Books, 2006)