The Thinly Fluted Wings of Stamps
Birds spoke you language, by coming to the sill.
Letters cooperated by flying away.
You tore white strips from the hearts of loaves.
The birds were nouns, you could say,
“I saw three gnat-catchers, seventeen cardinals,”
and make a place in the air that was yours.
They brought you whatever their feet had touched,
branch, birdbath, red interlocking roof,
and all the words that mean flight:
dodge, glide, soar.
Fifteen years you nested in one room,
one fluffy pink sweater, without coming downstairs.
I laughed at your letters. “Prince Charles
is still available. Satan sleeps in the White House,
please write back soon.” I still laugh.
You were the only person I knew who used real ink.
At night you wondered where the birds were sleeping,
felt their small breath hovering in your bones and hair.
You dreamed your clock became an onion,
sprouting one green shoot.
You were hungry, but wouldn’t cut it.
Once I visited you and curtains were flapping,
the sky had eyes. “They need me. The birds need me.”
A truck from the bakery delivered twenty loaves.
Every day? You nodded. You said we all had our jobs.
Now I feel your small flights nudging me.
A hundred blackbirds fly north, toward Chicago.
I think maybe they knew you and stand still for a moment,
staring up. This is our ongoing correspondence,
the wing between our worlds: to stoop for small things,
scanner seeds for hens, notice the feather has two sides.
There are crazier ways. Prince Charles taken.
I lined six stones in the sill and have been watching them
for days.