Birding on Key West

Stiffled by the pressed heat of Florida August,
we cut a swath for luring birds and one another.
I took to humming, you to reticence

a royal tern, his florescent white
with black head, slicked wings, orange beak.
You were, by then, long gone.

Who has seen an island’s wooden porch
knows the confrontations: home and the sea,
man and woman.  Make any combination,

two will come together, though not for long,
each keeping origins, bated breath,
clipped wings, respective feathers.

Mood as Device

How do we discuss our riven
and lost certainties, habits:
my search for you – your
off-edges, our took chances,
             as if we could
given conditions and our earthly ties,
time angled past old perimeters,
us, addled in museums and poems,
rubber canvas, stretched verse
             as we would
seeing how language works
volant like field creatures
in their burrow and stash
trying to hold what was
             or could have been.

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Copyright 2007, Lynne Potts.
 All Rights Reserved by Author.