Lines Regarding the Black Feathers on Canton

By CURTIS BAUER

 

Grackles foraging outside of a Whataburger near North Lake Park.

Soon enough the grackles will truth

the yard out back beneath the wires,

 

the sidewalk cracks, the live oak roots.

They will lose their dying feathers, now glossed

 

a greasy sheen the females polish

their beaks with. They must be blind,

 

or like a shiny bone. Or they mistake

the burr and clatter from the other’s

 

throat for song, the clamor a talisman

that pulls them in. Like a lover might

 

feel the pulse in the other’s arm

and want to hold it tighter, let

 

the beating become a surging matched

in her chest. When I pass the grackles

 

on 21st, they turn and watch me pass

like the crows back in Oskaloosa

 

used to look down on me, the only man

walking those blank streets, and watch.

 

Silence here can needle into the cracks

and weaken a structure’s core. Like water

 

erodes every solid, can wear it paper thin.

A song a woman sang me once, a tender

 

orchid of a song so delicate I thought hearing

it would wilt every molecule of its beauty, did this,

 

too. The voice that bloomed the song’s flower

today became the grackle explosion and call.

 

Beneath the surface, beside the roots that black

beckons me back to the lover I was, to recall

 

what beauty is lost, the stain my life has become.

 

 

 

Curtis Bauer is the author of three poetry collections: his first, Fence Line (2004), won the John Ciardi Poetry Prize; Spanish Sketchbook (2012) is a bilingual English/Spanish collection published in Spain; and The Real Cause for Your Absence will be released March 2013 by C&R Press. 

Photo by Rich Anderson from Flickr Creative Commons

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

Lines Regarding the Black Feathers on Canton

Related Posts

beach

“During the Drought,” “Sestina, Mount Mitchill,” “Dragonflies”

LIZA KATZ DUNCAN
”The earth, as blue and green / as a child’s drawing of the earth— // is this what disaster looks like? My love, think / of the dragonflies, each migratory trip / spanning generations. Imagine // that kind of faith: to leave a place behind / knowing a part of you will find its way back, / instinct outweighing desire.

Baileys Harbor Shoreline

On the Shores of Baileys Harbor

BEN TAMBURRI
The beaches of Baileys Harbor are for birds, too pebbly and coarse to relax on. The water is cold, and the waves break at your ankles.

Two children kneel on a large rock surface, large grey boulders and a forest of trees visible in the distance.

The Garden of the Gods

ELI RODRIGUEZ FIELDER
The gods must have been giant children squeezing drip sandcastles from their palms, back when this land was at the edge of a sea. This used to be a mouth, I say. It feels impossible that this peculiar landscape should suddenly emerge among farms and Dairy Queens.