spark bird

by Damon Hubbs

The last time I watched a soccer game

Zinedine Zidane flattened Materazzi with the headbutt

heard round the world. I’m telling you this

but you don’t care because you’re writing another bird poem.

It’s your third bird poem in two days

and you have a vape in the strap of your dress

as you grope towards some terrible divine.

You’re like a figure hiding in the cloak

of St. Dymphna, watching birds in a pocket anthology

of trees as colorful as soap operas.

It’s light jacket weather for right wingers.

Apparently the Azzurri

were talking trash about Zidane’s sister,

something about a post-divorce party.

The spark bird delivers the message,

flinty redhead, little backstabber,

eyes like diamond traps you’ve laid me up.

Your radical intimacy makes me blush.

What does it mean to be alive buffeted by woodwinds…

I’m trying to remember

how many bird poems you wrote that year,

the kettle coming down

like a fit of madness

So many beasts on the communion rail

flustering feathers, changing pitch.

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