If The Dead Bird In The Gutter Rises Up
       

Tell me that this morning's not collusive
when already I've dropped the coffee pot
—in shards!—and, outside, nearly stumbled
on a pigeon decaying like a heap of autumn

on the ground. Little bird, some people say
you are a rat with feathers but please
flap your wings anyway. Let them be as wet sheets in the wash
furiously folding and unfolding, water droplets flying forth

like a broken tiara's rhinestoned
scattering. Like dreams of bad childhood ballet.
Manhattan should be patched
with pokeweed and chicory

or inlets where unshuckable
oysters grow nacreous
under river-clouding muck. Maybe a hawk
to soar above. But then so much less a city.

Perhaps it's better just to learn
how not to want. I'd like to have
this morning once again
or know how to make my life

a palindrome so there's sense in it
from either direction. That won't happen.
I'd like the bird
to not be dead. It's important

to be permeable. To pay whatever bills
are now past due.
To differentiate between being sad
or only old barn dilapidated.

To imagine a certain kind of waltz
so I can shamble
like there's a circus bear inside me
as I amble solitary down my street.

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Copyright © 2016 Kate Angus All rights reserved
from So Late to the Party
Negative Capability Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission