Migration  

I'm greeting the arrival

of a bright-eyed yellow bird.

The bird is a canary,

known for its beautiful song.

She nestles in my chest,

sings a story of abandonment

and misplaced faith.  She sings

of lost moments, of a union

so intense it brought tears

to the eye.  The bird doesn't cry,

only sings a steady tune

in the early morning hours.

Cheer up, the bird chirps.

For don't you know

that all summer long

I will be your boon companion?

In the long, light-filled days ahead,

I will stay with you,

nesting near your heart,

returning each day

with scavenged bits of hair

and silken thread, building

a nest amidst the bone branches

of your ribs.  And when

the autumn light turns pink

and the days begin to shorten

and chill, I will crack open

your sternum like a hull

and fly away, taking all

of your sorrow with me,

spreading it over the ocean's

surface, flying and flying

until I find a green island

in the middle of clearest blue,

and there in the center

of the tallest palm, I will stop,

I will nose my stiff beack

into the ruffle and plume

of sequined golden feathers,

and rest, swaying

and sparkling in the midday sun.

Fever

The heat of your small body
            pulsed waves of worry

through shallow dreams, woke me again
            and again. Your cheeks flushed

an unholy pink, the skin
            of your lips swelled and shiny, scorched

by some inner violence. 
            When you woke

your vacant eyes regarded me
            from some newly indifferent shore

found me praying you would
            make your way, would pull me back

from this unforgiving edge
            of mother-love.

Ryan Adams

Gorgeous words

wheedled in harsh tones,

the shock of bangs

grown perfectly long, to the end

of his pointy, turned up nose.

So ridiculously gifted

it makes you want to cry. Hiding

while playing in full view,

behind a guitar and piano,

or out in front, his muscled legs

in tight jeans straining

toward the microphone.

“I don’t think

I’d fuck any of you,” he spits

from the stage

at our upturned faces.

The suburban audience

surveys him warily, too cowed

to tell him

we wouldn’t fuck him either,

or to tell him (politely)

to Go fuck himself.

He should be dead

all the clichéd problems

with drink and drugs,

but he survived

to be here tonight, oozing superiority

from every pore, hipster sarcasm

spraying the front row,

his youthful, stupid, blind genius

like a hard white light

shining out from the darkened stage

and so

like the indulgent parents we are

we forgive him everything.