by Laurie Klein
… the lives of people like you and me
are one long argument. Desires on one side,
woodpeckers on the other.
Never a moment of real silence.
—Aldous Huxley
She hates the break of day, that rattle-pate beak
concussing the calm. So loud she can’t think. Won’t.
Will not wake again to his back. She’ll never
renege on the debt they can’t crack, the bone-jolt
clatter between them. She refuses to sell—
and how can he ask—
it’s their home,
despite the red-headed clamor. The dark bill attacks,
hacks at the shutters. She knows
that manic action initiates courtship. Go figure.
Later, a separate cadence will signal
the haven he’ll shape for his mate—
but oh, the bitten threshold.
Saving air pockets amid a mineral mesh absorb
shock after shot. And perhaps, a strike
back, to unending regret. Still, she has to say,
how ingenious, bird-wise, that sinewy tongue:
it retracts like a braided leash, into the skull,
cradling the brain.
Discord is a jackhammer’s burrr
and pock, grating as her travel alarm,
harsh as his ringtone. Urgent. Urgent as owing.
Imagine punching in call after call, dear God,
trying, trying to get through.
::
Laurie Klein is the author of Where the Sky Opens (Poeima/Cascade). Her work has appeared in The Southern Review, SWIMM, New Letters, Terrain, MAR, Louisiana Literature, Barrow Street, and elsewhere. She lives in the Pacific Northwest.
Image: Bob Brewer
Image description: two woodpeckers look at each other over the top of a fence post.
Psaltery & Lyre 