clothes pins on The Line


  •                             look like birds. Scrawny
  • winter   birds   balanced by   two   sarong

  •                                                       tail   feathers.   Some   look west,
  •                                         others north-

  • east   toward   the
  •                                             mountain.   Stiff in the   cold &

  • remote.   They  haven’t  been   loved
  •                                                         enough.   They grow

  •                                            thinner   and thinner   in their   woody
  • streaked   feathers,   held together  only   by

  • the exposed   spiral   of   internal
  •                                         organs.   After  a  while ,   the sun comes

  • out and   all o f   the birds,   clutching   wire,   turn
  •                           an     electric            silver.

  • This is     hopeful,,    but doesn’t   last.         Clouds
  •   take a  break   from   one   another , ,

  •                           re-
  •                           convene.   A half-inch of

  • snow is rolled out   with   perfect    evenness
  •               across               the picnic   table,   as though

  •                                                         someone made a blank
  •                                                      for what was

  •                 coming.    The nice thing
  • about   clothespin    birds   is             they   don’t

  • “excrete.”
  •                            Jays   &   grosbeaks   &   finches

  • &      mourning    doves    + ravens   leave
  •                 their   paintings

  •                 everywhere , on   benches & limbs ,, , on fallen
  • pine needle fascicles \|/                    feldspar & quartz _ __

  • though   all  has  now   become
  • gesso    beneath    snow.   After   a  certain amount   of

  •                            feeling
  •                 hopelessly under-

  •                          accomplished,   you look at   your   nails
  • and   want   to
  •                          paint them.         Is this how   birds

  •               feel?                 No.         Birds fly
  • and   don’t    look

  •                        down.      Or,   they   sit   `’’   amid branches
  •              and    peck   at the   brittle   waffled   bark

  •                          & tiny    bugs    buried
  •               in   the marrow.  .< sszt sszt sszt .<   You, too,

  • peck.  Familiar letters    on t he   keys have   lost
  • their    definition        and   resemble   finger-

  •                             tip-size   daubs of   bird   paint   on back-
  •                lit platforms.   You   recall the   s   e   &   m

  • only   via   entrenched   neural   pathways ,
  •             while   the   l   and   c      continue to

  • morph   into tiny   archaic
  •                              symbols.    As though,  the  unconscious

  • is forming      a message.       ( Always   “it”   has   something
  •                        unearthly     to say. ) Except

  • the unconscious   is
  •                                         the earth ,    it’s   just   we

  • don’t  know   how   she               does it.

  •            St. Thomas of Aquinas  got  a delirium

  •                                      hit of   t hat   at the end
  •           and decided  to   marry   it.   Each day

  • your thumbs   grow   paler,   nails   coarser,   evolving
  •              toward   the ptero-

  •                                 dactyl: part  reptile,  part   bird.
  • As  a  child

  •                         pterodactyls   scared you,         which meant
  •             they   had  your             attention.   Refusing to stay

  •                         in   the   lineage,         they became
  •                                       their  own            form.

  •              They had  an  iguana       for     a     father
  • and  a   pelican   for  a    mom,

  • crispy  and  dipped  in  molasses.
  • If you were big enough

  •                                       you could   eat   them
  •                           the  way   some people   eat grass-

  •           hoppers.  Compulsive hole-
  •                          punchers,  if less 

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