White oaks thrash, moonlight drifts

the ceiling, as if I'm under water.

Propane coils, warms my bones.

Gone are the magics and songs,

all the things our grandmothers buried—

piles of feathers and angel bones,

inscribed by all who came before.

When I was twelve, my cousins

called me ugly, enough to make it last.

Tonight a celebrity on Oprah

imagines a future where features

can be removed and replaced

on a whim. A moth presses wings

thin as paper against my window,

more beautiful than I could ever be.

Ryegrass raise seedy heads

beyond the bull thistle and preen.

Everything alive aches for more.

I woke to rapid flapping, the air cold

the time unknown. The dog’s paws tapping

on chill hardwood floor. Sudden

commotion. Jumping to corral what was

assumed to be an animal fight, I find

a California Towhee in my dining room.

Frantic, frightened. Brisk movement in her

wings making the room that much more frigid.

I stammer to her. Follow her room to room

as she attempts to fly her way out of walls

until she finally calms, allowing me to cup her

into my hands. We sit together outside

on a frosty concrete step. My bare feet

settling on top of wet fall leaves, gathering

the taste of morning in my mouth, the scent

of rain and dirt. She catches her breath.

My thumb softly wrapped around her chest

feeling her heart rate regulating, her eyes opening,

her fear receding. Leaves rustle, wind and traffic

move along while she and I watch each other

in a place where time moves slower than the rest

of the world. Her eyelids the color of peach

and terracotta. Her body the rusty hue of autumn.

Her eyes the same shade as mine, dark as loam.

I flatten my hand. She doesn’t move. We sit

together for what seems like hours. What seems

like fate when safety is reciprocated. Ten minutes

later she flies, stops on a dog-eared picket

and looks back. The dog quietly watches me.

How I love and let go all at once.

Usually, it’s the males. Maybe

they’ve gone out with buddies

in their leks, keeping their radar

tuned for female bees as they move

from sweet pea to mallow flower and

snapdragon, gathering pollen

in those hairy saddlebags called

corbiculae. Maybe they have

no place to return or are lost,

having gone too far from the nest.

Maybe the empty football fields

and elementary school playgrounds,

long unmowed since our common

isolation and teeming now

with yellow dandelions, proved

too much. Sweet alyssum,

phlox; wisteria cascading heavy

out of themselves. Honeysuckle

and evening-scented stock,

dianthus crowned with hint

of cinnamon and smoky clove.

Female bees will also burrow

deep inside the shade of a squash

flower: the closer to the source

of nectar, the warmer and more

quilt-like the air. In the cool

hours of morning, look closely

for the slight but tell-tale

trembling in each flower cup:

there, a body dropped mid-flight,

mid-thought. How we all retreat

behind some folded screen as work

or the world presses in too

soon, too close, too much.

I'm working on a poem that's so true, I can't show it to anyone.

I could never show it to anyone.

Because it says exactly what I think, and what I think scares me.

Sometimes it pleases me.

Usually it brings misery.

And this poem says exactly what I think.

What I think of myself, what I think of my friends, what I think about my lover.

Exactly.

Parts of it might please them, some of it might scare them.

Some of it might bring misery.

And I don't want to hurt them, I don't want to hurt them.

I don't want to hurt anybody.

I want everyone to love me.

Still, I keep working on it.

Why?

Why do I keep working on it? 

Nobody will ever see it. 

Nobody will ever see it.

I keep working on it even though I can never show it to anybody.

I keep working on it even though someone might get hurt.