BIRD
With our hands we entered the forbidden world
that runs alongside the world, shutting the curtains
on a June day. Gone: the sun-splashed lawn,
the sprinkler's chir, the parade of other kids
pedaling past, sweet barbecue smoke and birdsong,
the neighbor tabby stalking the wavering shadows
of the maple we'd just climbed. Gone the life we'd known.
How much is dream now, the summer-dimmed room,
the house's hushed voices, we two boys perched
on the edge of my bed. How we stopped our breath
to hear the same song leaping up the branches of our blood,
a question we both wanted to answer. How we slipped,
my friend and I, out of ourselves,
the bedroom door closed. In the dark, how he traced light
onto my smooth legs, a wing in me opening. How I watched
his small fist around mine, mine around his. It looks like a bird,
he whispered, his fingers clenched around the stiff pulse beneath.
Startled by something outside the moment, how we flew
to dress. All wingbone and breathless, our chests heaving
with thrum and flutter, wet with sky, how we stood
at the door—tucking ourselves in to dive back into the day
we somehow walked in an hour ago. How we padded down
the stairs out into the brash blaze, our bodies dripping
with shadows. How we paced across the lawn again,
recalling the wet grass, the feel of the earth, squinting to find
the ordinary contour of the world. How we stood at the foot
of that old tree, staring another lifetime away, forgetting
where we'd come from, a clump of bloody feathers at the root.
Robert Fanning is the author of four full-length collections of poetry, the latest of which is Severance (Salmon Poetry, 2019). His poems have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, Gulf Coast, The Atlanta Review, and many other journals. He is a Professor of English at Central Michigan University, as well as the founder/facilitator of the Wellspring Literary Series in Mt. Pleasant, MI., and the founder/director of PEN/INSULA POETRY, a resource for Michigan poets. For more information, visit: www.robertfanning.wordpress.com.