which bird

moon

which bird would you prefer

to skate across your face?

In whose shade

would you tuck yourself

beneath, under whose lifted wing

slightly bulged, your heart

beside whose heart?

If you were surface water

frozen in the mid of March,

November to nearly equinox

thick, I’d search for

an augured wish, an exposed

hole some fisherman has drilled

and soon let go—

I’d tap the thin film

the cold air slowed

into a pause

and it’s shattered glass

would float

against the round towered

walls and I would set my own line there.

And I would wait.

If I dipped my chin

to my chest, if I stayed

a praying grave by this hole,

could I become that bird

whose shadow you prefer,

under whose breast

you rest in waning ease?  May I

choose such your bird?  And may

it be a heron—slate gray—as straight

in the stream as in the air,

wings the beat up and down

like the handles of well pumps

women would prime and prime

to coax the first morning

breath from?

Look, from here, standing still,

they resemble those old pumps,

sentry poised, thick with winter.

And from here, as I decide

if I want water or blood,

flight or drowning, I step into

knowing they are both the same:

air or water, ascend or descend. 

A bird that pulls the clouds

behind it to tuck you in

or a bird

that pauses

by the ancient well or

augured hole, tapping that night ice

must not think

they have to make a choice at all,

that slipping into the ink

or the thin air

are really just the same:

you are pulled

either way, pulled until

you’re so new you aren’t even born

yet,

and the shadows

that line your face

cannot be asked

‘who are you?’

in a dark where they cannot

be cast.