after Eric Fischl Scene I Are primates the only order that fear rain, its shedding downhill? Do they think, my bones won’t mind: they’re always and already dying? And this man, though he’ll never find feathers under her arms, can’t stop from wondering where he’ll seek shelter should the sky open. Maybe the rain was never the problem to begin with. Finally he comes to realize he’ll never understand birds, though he wishes they’d burrow in his bellybutton, give him a balance he can find no other way. He is not a birdwatcher, but the grackle’s dirge, its turn, its biting grip of the night, how it is thinned with rain, with hard rain on a roof made of something other than stone, other than thatch and light and thunder. Scene II Already shadows have made their mark. Even a tuning fork pitched just right couldn’t pierce her eyes. She’ll have regrets. In her hips, or maybe just below the bowing in her calves. She’s a torn corner, she’s what’s missing in her portrait: a signature, a blemish, both. And my god she’s beautiful, the way archery’s beautiful or chop suey or shipwrecks and so much wine. Scene III It’s not called thinking when a mirror’s involved. Then, it’s called studying: Bees are building a hive in the bedpost, and I’m exactly one year old on Saturn. The mirror is propped up in a chair, nearer the floor than normal, so light won’t find its way there, so she’s backlit like a firefly against the neighbor’s brick siding. An almost-curtsy, her hands: Like casino night at church, or the flip of the porch light, perhaps I’m off to bed, but first, just one more look.