Bird of Love is Patient
The swan emerges from the gnarled heart
of bramble at the center of the lough, gliding
like the moon I once pulled across power lines
from a backseat window, on a car ride home.
Beneath the tea colored water her feet are feather fans
to cool a resting queen sweating in the desert,
that heavy effort, slow hypnosis
of a cat padding, lost in a dream of milk.
These frozen peas I throw sink fast
and the bird of love is slow.
But she comes—
she fishes them from the muck.
They melt like ice chips in her black beak
shiny and shy as a shoe
tucked behind an ankle on the first day of school.
How are you so patient? I ask.
Then I see that she is beholden to the stone circle of bank—
beholden to her leash of a neck.
In her boat of a body, she is somewhat trapped—
letting the sky rest all around her.