Night Birds
by Alenka Doyle
I.
Tonight, summer air will sigh in and split
my body with sweat, passing wet breaths
over the creases of my skin. But today
I will sit outside of the station and
allow my frozen body to thaw in
rectangles of yellow sun. I will watch
starlings perch on empty trains, silhouetted
by light, without closing my eyes.
Let the ceaseless sky burn my retina.
Let the shame smolder in my stomach.
And then, the rain like a smack to the face,
shocking the black birds into the air
in a swirling cloud, and I am left
lying on the tracks beneath the swarming sun.
II.
Lying on the dock, we swarm sun-bleached
as bones. Our limbs stretch out in rows, testing
the water’s edge. Beneath the surface,
snakebirds search for crayfish to spear on their
slender beaks; like us, they grow hungry.
Like them, we slide off the dock and disappear
into the lake, tucking our elbows
into our sides to swim like snakes.
We open our eyes to hunt for prey,
but the water stings. Our hands are on
backwards, we can’t bat away the cattails
that guard the shore. Above us, towering
trees hide the sun and the entire lake
darkens. The snakebird surfaces for air.
III.
To a darkening sky, we surface for air;
after all, the horseflies can’t get to us
neck-deep in freezing water, not until
our numb shivers force us out. These leeches
won’t bother us once they drink themselves full
of our thrumming hot blood and bile.
The standing dock is our next haven,
tipping with our weight and the flies on our backs.
Already the wood thrush sings about dusk.
For one more moment, these green shallows
are just for us and our cheap bathing suits.
We circled the mountains for hours
to get here. The watering hole is
endlessly deep. Sunset is tomorrow.
IV.
The endless depth of mountains hides sunset
from the ranch, and night takes hours to fall.
When we’re sure it is dark, we make ragged
circles and fill our mouths with dirty air,
putting our heads in our hands one by one.
I remember the first time I tried it;
I couldn’t catch my breath, though you tried to
teach me. Bundled in blankets, we would pass
the tip back and forth, a spit-slicked secret.
In the void outside of your window,
night birds would hover, flashing the stripes
beneath their wings at me in warning.
How long they’d linger, gray-and-black feathers
like shifting static, while I held my breath.
V.
But what if we could hold our breath and watch
the night birds linger on the concrete steps?
What if we could sit on the gravel until
it kisses imprints into our thighs
and the palms of our hands, stigmata
hallowing out our bodies? If the night
is warm, and the cool breeze sends a hint
of sweet grass and hyacinth to tickle
the downy hair on our cheeks, maybe then
I could sit with you. And in this dark night
where we cannot see our noses, we would
have to rely on other things to get by;
so, instead, we could listen for the screech
and momentary roar as the nighthawks dive.
VI.
When the nighthawks began to screech and dive
outside, we woke up on your old twin bed,
knowing the storm had finally dried up.
It must have been late—or felt late to us,
with the darkness pressing its hands against
the window, the outline of a pine tree
whispering outside. I must have gestured
at our friends elsewhere, dancing under lights.
And you said, none of them are possibly
as happy as I am right now. And I could
barely hear you over the birds courting
by the window, barely make out your face
in the dark, but I never forgot
what I heard that night, after the storm.
VII.
Late last night I heard, after a storm,
the circular song of the whip-poor-will.
Swaddled in a dream, I wandered outside,
my face coated with salt. In the blurry
mist, the trees’ leaves flickered like green fire
and the ground walked without me. Birdsong
repeated over and over as if
time was held still; each step I took was
backwards, I was falling through the dark.
But when all around me turned to shadow,
I found my edges soften, and my body
dissolved into twilight. For one moment
of cold peace, I was unspooled, until
a summer breeze sighed in and split open the night.