The Bird of God
     

Tutankhamen's ebony bed,
      made to withstand
five thousand years of nihilistic sand,
            didn't buckle under,

just as the bust of Sappho with one eye missing
      dutifully watches with the other
who comes and goes in the chamber,
which incompetent heart does the kissing.

            Needle descended from the sewing machine
      and typewriter
designed by the gun manufacturer,
            both rusted in their pinnings—

but not ice skates and the orrery,
      which still take their circuit
counterclockwise in an orbit
            around her most neglected library.

On the shelf next to tritus and whelks,
      a book called The Bird of God—
impossible to think an animal
            can live inside a shell. She used to

keep even the air around her still—
      how else to feed a sparrow from your hand?
She's no longer there, nor can any joy be found
            in that dead house, on that dark hill.

Copyright © 2009 Robin Ekiss All rights reserved
from The Mansion of Happiness
The University of Georgia Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission