VINYL POETRY

Volume 6, July 2012

BIRDIE
Robert OstromView Contributor’s Note

Distress in this Cautionary Tale is Dirt on the Lips

I am two nurseries. Beside a box of ornaments the smallest organs reside, useful, barely, to the cataloguing flesh, an able choir. But what chews at my stomach? Another rain ruins another family musical. Who unbuttons? Birds point to my body and birds point to trees so woodlands flourish in these walls. The branches point to a prisoner: a girl beside the mouth of a lake looks downstream and waves. She has been dreaming of cities, dresses, the early moustache of a young man.

Someday she will test the depth. I walk to that selfsame edge.

The lake is a heavy coat. Pines sing. On her ribs she can feel the pulse of a pocketwatch in my grandfather’s vest (chained not only to each other) because our ilk-dream rummages in the tops of trees, high above these walls, but just below my lung resigns itself to paper cranes. Cement cranes. Falls to pieces. Rests and rests once. Under the grape arbor, I would like to think.