Consider this bird

i.

I will tap on the hollow of your cheek:

--‘don’t you suffer, sometimes?

--’come to bed, won’t you?’

it’s hard to say if I feel one way or another about it.

these people
are something though, aren’t they?

the sky suddenly turning up gray
but always with houses to undress in, to dry off.

when we talk, no matter what, it’s as if
we talk about birds.

ii.

no sleep handshakes give us away.
practically gleaming at sunsoaked passersby
practically falling asleep in motion, sharklike--

look at you, yawning, hand over mouth

at us in delirium resplendent

iii.

there is a bird alight on slender branch, precarious.
this bird recognizes its own weight and feels the wind.

sometimes you are the bird and sometimes I am.
sometimes only the sound of flapping wings
and all the papers blow off your desk onto the floor.

sometimes we are all the bird, and I think this
might be best.

iv.

there is a rainstorm, so why am I still reading to you?
there is a robbery, and I’m still handing out money
I don’t have.

consider a life spent in between cities  
in gas station parking lots with nothing
but steam and grackles rising off of the asphalt

consider a life spent with the coin
always landing heads up--wonderful
til it’s terrible, but god aren’t we lucky?

v.

when the bird sees you naked it recognizes you,
when I see you naked I kiss the length of your
spine.

vi.

now, close your eyes.
I will trace shapes across the surface
of a bowl of water:

tell me what you’re seeing


vii.

--what if we had ended up killing that baby bird
we took up onto the porch?

--we did the right thing. it was raining so
hard that night.

viii.

don't you feel gorgeous when you’re
this tired?

consider the bird riding the updraft
over the sea: how many miles she
has travelled, how many more
to the ocean’s bottom.


what of longevity, then?
these bodies in bed, warm together
and kept from death so far.

isn’t it enough?