The Mockingbird

THE MOCKINGBIRD


It’s 2:04 in the morning
& this mockingbird
has already
been at it 45 minutes.

Variety unrivaled.

Chirps,
fractured
into strains
of Schoenberg,
Bartok,
Matisse!

Trills & combinations,
repetitions that rival
autumn’s
rusty hair,
swoops & dives
descending notes
in perfect unison!

The mockingbird’s
magnesium
slowly
condenses
on my spine.

I lie
in cold, black grass,
opening
the pages
of my bones.

The moon,
stalking the yard
in her mother-of-pearl nightgown,
presses her bruised lips
against my throat.

Wolves prowl
the black pearl corridors
of the moon’s waist.

A flexibility of razors
flies
from the mockingbird’s white shoulders.

Inert,
as a nerve
splintered in dusk,
I’m incredibly
well-preserved.

Today,
I could die happy
as though
in a hammock
of ashes.


Alan Britt

Posted over on March Street Press