The birds are loud and the sky is bluing, she told me.
The world is divided into how much sky there is and how much land and how much sea.
People are divided into how much they see in each.
The sea, the sky, both blue. The horizon shifts for the people accordingly; a cup, a nest, a hollow half full or half empty.
A giant division sign at the horizon; a leveler.
Perhaps it is an equal sign, two lines, so faint they appear as one.
I see a kite the shape of a shark, changing atmospheres. Blue sky, blue sea. The shark is still in her element, but now she cannot breathe. Or perhaps she has found a new way, sailing through clouds like giant sea stars.
Did you know the brown-headed cowbird leaves its eggs in the nests of others?
The mother bird feeds them as she does her own. The cowbirds grow bigger, and her babies die.
Sometimes the world is so cunning and cruel, I cannot believe it is true.
But brown-headed cowbirds raised in the nests of cedar waxwings often die. They cannot live on fruit alone.
Is this justice? Is this balance?
The cowbird looks so terrestrial, all dark brown and black, like soot. The cedar waxwing looks like the sunrise, all pastels in the middle, with bright yellow and red tips like the edge of the sun. They court by passing,
. . . . back and forth, a berry.
. . . . Or a petal.
. . . . If the female accepts it, she accepts being courted.
As the sky blued again, what I wanted was for her to put a berry in my mouth.
. . Or a petal in the hollow of my breasts.
. . . . When she finally came to my chest for the first time that night, the sky so blue,
. . . . the stars so bright, she was ravenous. She said it felt like home.
. . . . . . She brought with her a four-leafed shamrock.
. . . . . . . . It had been raining in the greening field.
Megan Taylor earned her MFA in Creative Writing at Goddard College. She currently teaches English Composition at two colleges in upstate New York. Megan finds inspiration in books by Helen Oyeyemi, poems by Gertrude Stein, and lyrics by The Notorious B.I.G. You can find her snuggled on the couch, with her girlfriend and their cat, watching Columbo.
