Real Birds
Photo by Kenneth Cole Schneider
Once, in the middle of the night, I heard a squeak from the building across the street,
some rumbling of the air conditioning or something,
and I thought it was a bird,
some exotic nighthawk on the roof,
something beautiful,
with eyes like smooth black stones,
and a scarf of white around his neck.
He would be perched on the edge of his talons,
there, above the old folks’ home,
and the gray building with sunflowers by the parking lot,
his wings tensed,
ready to expand, long and bat-like,
ready to flap wildly in circles,
to chase the moon
over the cold pavement,
and the rhododendrons by the hospital,
and the three homeless men who sleep outside by the church,
all the while squeaking, squeaking, squeaking–
a beautiful dark fleck
above the I-405 bridge,
and the dim rusty glow of the river.
