by Paul Nelson

We would fly

right out of Shakespeare’s pages & find a bath in which
                to go into a trance, maybe ant ourselves w/ a caught ant

or splash of vodka, vinegar

speaking

the name Mortimer, metallic are we tearing about the sky
                above the city that feeds us, splitting in two

connecting by a field, or a membrane, or a star force, vulgar
                 our last name, but darkening the sky like an

avian motorway, funnel cloud above looking for bugs
                 roosting in a masculine perch, shoving off

the females and adolescents. Zinnias tower above us.

Unafraid of the hawk or eagle in bunches would scare Hitchcock
                 shitless here we are

only understanding each other, borg-like in our power
                 of the collective. 

With a taste for cherries and daytime dragonflies becoming one
                 with that celestial tone we learn to mimic

and the needles that feed us, & fix our flow, help us to celebrate
                  and remember. Take a picture of this she chirps

and the flock advances, escapes, goes as far west as possible, into
                  direction of ancestors

is it they making our cues? Is it we tuned in to a field that’s occupied
                  by someone from another dimension?

Is it black cod barely cooked through, or goat cheese followed
                  by sake? Are we remembering all this or is it 

another inspired improvisation? This city of our heart does grow
                  smaller. Diminishes before our peripheral vision.

Becomes a blur when I focus on your skin, or your exotic

plumage.

And I grow into you, protect you from every predator, beckon
                  prophets, bird baths and real estate angels and somehow

somehow, we never collide.

12:22A – 2.19.10