Hagar & the Blue Jay at the Buena Vista Apartments*
 
The baby first comes to her 
as a dream of a blue jay streaming  light.
It is a warning about blessing and nature.

Two bodies twine like purple clematis
and the bargain grows.  The couple settles, 
agrees without smiles, feels the  linkage
of the soul and gristle.

Soon, the woman holds the newborn swaddled in cotton.
Everything is changed.  There is no going back.
The jay on the yellowed apartment lawn pecks the thoughtless insects
and eyes her somehow.  
 
Though love is sometimes in her throat like a swallowed dime,
there is something she wants and cannot name.
She will always want it now.
Her glass ashtray fills with the grey powder 
of trying to know what some other life could be 
if she had not lain down 
like a little corpse of joy in the birdsong.

*first appeared in Paddlefish
from Still Life with Judas & Lightning (Airlie Press 2013)