by Vasiliki Argyris
Do birds fear heights, the way
we fear living?
Pigeons above all, always
so low to the ground,
and squirrels, not avian but aerial,
crossed wires
with cheeks full of
preparedness,
We risk so much to prepare
for so little,
The mourning dove is watching
from a higher branch
this evening.
Their wings are the green
of the faraway part of the sky
during thunder,
They strike it rich
on a wire,
before the mute storm,
The atmosphere bursts like a train
through the neighborhood,
The train has come to see what it can pummel,
but everything has been cleared
for its path,
It is an arrow,
Just the air breaks,
and the sparks flick themselves until
they burn on air and die.
Composed of listening light,
orchestral sleep is prescribed,
Upon every eyelid,
over goose-down or under bridge,
The green pretense knows no leisure,
Our dreams underneath its weight are dastardly,
but doctor’s orders are rarely easy,
Even the even-handed ones,
It’s only Wednesday
when the sky mimics
the diamond’s light,
cupped over my finger.
All things, almost, you can never
have cupped long enough to hold,
So love becomes a marriage,
and lightening a sound,
so late, so late,
In one baroque spring,
could have been this year
or sixty-five million before,
Dirt’s veins
strike it rich.
Vasiliki Argyris is a writer, visual artist and worker living in Philadelphia, PA. She looks for the threads that bind history, poetry, and walking the earth. Her work can be found in Pamphilet and Works & Days.