I am out in this desert nine
years now, and I suffer
for the cold steely rain of other
birds’ days. I,
a desert bird; not kin to the
orange-breasted
conspicuous robin who
industriously abides
the downpour for the plump,
pinkish worms to unearth
prone on the walk, like
delicacies adrift off a shipwreck;
nor to the crafty, aping blue
jay, who, stringing a predator,
descends screaming; nor the
blood-red cardinal, skilled operatic,
who against whitest snow, stops
the breath
from his perfect beauty. I,
the bird exiled; the soup pot holds
no cup of broth for me. In
this blistering land no melody
betrays my post, my song squeaks
and creaks, my bill
less a bill than a pincer, and
so, pathetically, I covet.
Come dusk, why I put up a racket
is at last
I know the sun is a nettle who
will tool me to its whims,
water is first and last, shade
the sustainer, and shiny
black bees, big as a man’s thumb,
beckon me through the holes
in woody things to desert
greenery spiked with fangs.
The cutting thorns and blades
mark my body’s borders.
Sparse blossoms of color,
vigilantly reared; artless blooms
but fiercely policed. When
life feels a mutiny
I fly to the water I think I see.
I will continue to die for it.
