Wings
by Barry Dempster
As if the sky were a sheet strung between trees
on which a 1960’s family watched
home movies, my father thinks the backyard birds
are performing aerial shows for him alone.
Geez, those Speedy Gonzalez hummingbirds, that
cardinal bedecked like a harlot, and what about
the yellow finch shitting its way across the roses,
a veritable fireworks. But it’s the measly
robin he falls in love with, the one that splashes
in the grass, Midas in a heap of golden worms.
She sat in my lap just a minute ago, he
swears, wings beating like a pair of draped open hearts.
And I can feel the skitter, the flick, flick, flick
of her love on my own skin, just an instant of
belonging, of being more to the world than
a hoe and rake, a measly man. Do I long
for the embrace of senility? A blue jay bursting
from the brain behind my eyes, double-dipping
itself in sunlight, asking me to spread my arms.
Barry Dempster is the author of seven poetry collections, including Fire and
Brimstone (Empyreal Press) and The Salvation of Desire (St. Thomas Press).
His New & Selected Poems, The Words Wanting Out, will be published by
Nightwood Editions in September 2003.
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