milah

 

Walking through the dunes,

a necklace is lost,

becomes detritus in the sand.

The wind, a pickpocket.

I find a stick in the brush,

take it home, like a dog.

Back at the house, I go to the robin’s grave.

His vermillion chest must be faded now,

beneath that brown dirt, cast with that serious light.

Brown feels like forever. All seasons.

Somewhere in the city a little girl wears pink

in a train station with her father.

She sits on a wooden bench, swinging her feet.

The father leans against an iron pillar by the tracks,

lights a cigarette and inhales deeply.

The train comes, the cigarette is thrown.

His silver chain catches white-blue light

as they pass through the open doors.

Somewhere in the city a grown woman bathes,

her body red from the hot water.

She drinks a cold glass of whiskey 

and talks on the phone with a young friend.

The woman’s voice echoes against the white tiles

as she tells the girl about her lovers:

A Swiss watchmaker who brings her flowers, 

boring but kind.

A young bass singer in the church choir 

who likes to kiss in public. He’s very tall.

She hangs up the phone, drains the bath,

prepares to meet a married man.

Somewhere in the city a cedar waxwing migrates.

Dizzy off of those little red berries,

he meets a glass window and is found 

lying beneath it, still.

The drunk waxwing is remembered as 

a reveler of the bird world.

And here, in the country,

I sit in front of the robin’s grave,

a faint cross fingered into the earth.