I can’t advise you
about the fulsome momit building a nest in the eaves
and speckling your porch with guano
or draw your attention from the roadside
foliage to the blatant bully-bird
tearing across the sky to pirate
the eggs of the dusky wing-flapper.
Darling, shall we walk to the beach
where the locals have spied the weird necktie
duck? Shall we resist the urge to chase
those flappable gypsy-birds patrolling the shore-line?
Or shall we rest on the porch
after the morning rains and wait
for the worm pullers to work the lawn?
Don’t ask me the name of the long-tailed flutter-wings
posing on the telephone wires or why
the pearly gnat-picker upsets
the neighborhood squirrels.
All I promise you is the wild repertory bird
and the whirling dizzy. Don’t ask
about the at-home-in-the-clouds wing-spreader
or that nasty swerve of pink feet
perusing the highway for road kill.
Cuddle with me and listen to the serenade
of the fat-toed dimwit, the tree triller, the morning’s minion,
the harmonium, the capadacious, the chiripidee.
Claire Keyes is the author of The Question of Rapture and the chapbook Rising and Falling. Her new book of poems, What Diamonds Can Do, was published in 2015. Her poems and reviews have appeared most recently in Literary Bohemian, Sugar Mule, Crab Orchard Review, and Persimmon Tree. She is Professor Emerita at Salem State University in Massachusetts.