Aubade with Rare Bird
I love you like I love the sentence—
the way a verb loves its subject. Nothing I wouldn’t do
for you, captain of my starship. I love you like the dead
languages I discover in our junk drawer. Searching
for a scrap to write on, I unearth your faded messages
among the pen caps and pizza coupons. O mysteries
of Lascaux! Sanskrit, Sumerian. I murmur your name
like old women in churches. I worship your irrelevance,
your occasional oversharing. When we fight, I pull up
weeds by the root, toss them in a heap
with the unforgiven. Every neighborhood bitch stops
so you can rub her good, pooch whisperer, jealous
of me. Hairbrained and morning-breathed, I ache
for your paws on me before you make the coffee.
Plague times, I’d swap spit, give up my first shot
slot for you. Anyone messes with you, I’ll get up at dawn
and Alexander Hamilton them for you. Which makes me
a fool, it’s true. I’d chew on hemlock if it would
spare you. Love, we’re alive. It’s May, there’s a Canada
warbler at the feeder and I’ll share him with you,
his necklace of black bone, his yellow eye, the high
chipped syllables he won’t waste on us for long.
the way a verb loves its subject. Nothing I wouldn’t do
for you, captain of my starship. I love you like the dead
languages I discover in our junk drawer. Searching
for a scrap to write on, I unearth your faded messages
among the pen caps and pizza coupons. O mysteries
of Lascaux! Sanskrit, Sumerian. I murmur your name
like old women in churches. I worship your irrelevance,
your occasional oversharing. When we fight, I pull up
weeds by the root, toss them in a heap
with the unforgiven. Every neighborhood bitch stops
so you can rub her good, pooch whisperer, jealous
of me. Hairbrained and morning-breathed, I ache
for your paws on me before you make the coffee.
Plague times, I’d swap spit, give up my first shot
slot for you. Anyone messes with you, I’ll get up at dawn
and Alexander Hamilton them for you. Which makes me
a fool, it’s true. I’d chew on hemlock if it would
spare you. Love, we’re alive. It’s May, there’s a Canada
warbler at the feeder and I’ll share him with you,
his necklace of black bone, his yellow eye, the high
chipped syllables he won’t waste on us for long.
Theresa Burns’ poetry, reviews, and nonfiction have appeared in The New York Times, Prairie Schooner, New Ohio Review, JAMA, The Cortland Review, The Night Heron Barks, Plume, SWWIM, and elsewhere. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and author of the chapbook Two Train Town. Her first full-length collection, Design, will be published by Terrapin Books in 2022. A long-time book editor in New York and Boston, she is the founder of the community-based reading series Watershed Literary Events and teaches writing in and around New York.
Art: Yuno Shiota,『月と金木犀』Tsuki to Kinmokusei Moon and Osmanthus, 295 cm × 360 cm, acrylic and oil pastel on board, 10.14.2020