THE CENTER OF A PRAYER
A small wren jimmied her way into my chest,
plucked out my heart, then hers, swapped them—quick.
And Francis stands all day in gardens everywhere
always a bird in hand, or nudged against his robe,
this man who starved into a sleeve of bones,
while malaria bit down on him and chewed.
My hands so sore with wrong, I can't be soothed.
When I die, the birds will not wheel down to sing
although I've fed them mounds of seeds.
Not once have I felt one in my hand,
stepping with its pointed delicacy of pain.
One wingbeat and my heart is just my own.
A wren glues you to the dirt and then you fade.
The earth is warm then cold, the birds just birds.
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THREE BIRDS
Northern Flicker
exquisite seriousness
black crescent
formal in spite of spotted pantaloons
its tail props up a trace of prophecy
as it cleans its beak in the tree bark's crevices
oh the sweet superiority
honey-weaver and hardship
dignity made real in a reddish slant of light
Dark-Eyed Juncos
darting for the cliffs and clicking in the sun
their tails a trinity
triangled white on slate
plunging through the burning layers of sky
vagabonds not quitters don't explain
Lesser Goldfinches
safe in winter plainness
then spring the gold of them explodes
newborn mystics
black skullcaps roused by yellow fire
lemon lust
those happy sisters
laughing haints
rising risk mingling
think loss swarm virtue those last words