The delirium of the birds in the fresh heat
Of a vivid blue-green day, the back yard
Like a photograph of Earth from near orbit,
Lizard crossing the Sahara of the court,
Painfully vivid, painful because all the detail
Betrayed no answer to body and puppet
Busy knitting another day's ghostly self
From nothing and nothing much: I gasped
For breath at the thought of being a bird.
Somebody somewhere was somebody else
Burning brush before the wind picked up, or
Bouncing an unseen basketball on the court
With a monotonous, clumsy intensity
Suggesting frustration. There we were,
You see? You would if you could see yourself
You old marionette of maintenance, hope,
And disappointment. You were, we were, we
All. A backbeat thumped around like a fish
Having a cardiac on the grass, then floated
Away, free, and escaped on the breeze. One
Caught between the too-many waves
And their obstacles that made the brackish
Backyard tidal zone of me longed to be
Already past the weir sun's afterimage
Left on the overwhelmed mind by fenced-in
Waves on waves on waves. Song, fish, beat,
Bounce, burn, bird, puppet scheming
How to be helpless but helplessly set free.
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