Solitary Vireo
I understand why people drive around
with their stereos up and their windows down;
sometimes it’s not enough to burn alone
inside, you want everyone, the world,
to feel your heat, char their fingers
picking you out of the crowd.
But the guy who sells you a scratch ticket
drops your change on the counter
right next to your upturned palm,
and the clerk in the booth at the bank,
and the gas station, and the fast-food drive-thru,
shuts off her intercom before you can
tell her what you want—
maybe you’ll steal from her.
Maybe you take your white-hot ache,
turn it inside out, wave it, snap it
open like a toreador’s cape. Maybe for a while
you feel like a bullfighter—
except the bull won’t charge. So you go
to the park because you always go,
and while you’re there some old lady
grabs your arm and points:
Vireo, she says, vireo.
Jesus, you think, but you’re tired,
so take her binoculars and look, see
the startled round eye of a bird,
its chest pushing out notes,
You’re still looking
while the woman reads to you from her book:
A common migrant in most of the East.
Loud song of short, varied phrases repeat
See-me, hear me, here-I-am.
by Amy Dryansky
from How I Got Lost So Close to Home
Alice James Books, 1999
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