Nothing Else
Who put a feather
in the suggestion box?
Who says that I should fly?
I can sing, if nothing else,
and failing that can strut around
in heels, or carry them hooked
on the fingers of one hand,
my fluted glass in the other,
or can let them drop
like birds that always die in pairs
on the marble floor
of whatever palace I’m drunk in.
Have you ever eaten at the table
of the Archduke Géza von Habsburg?
Ask me if I have.
Have you ever heard
the despairing laugh
of the hawk, devouring
the young ones fallen
from her nest? It’s horrible,
but breaks off beautifully,
at unexpected moments,
like the journals of M. Guillotin,
who was a man with huge hands
and a delicate handwriting
before becoming a machine,
his journals just now uppermost
in enlightened minds.
I sit with them all night
by the fire, staying awake
for some interruption,
a knock on the door. I jump.
My cup of pencils falls
but doesn’t spill and I am grateful.
How sad does that make me?
Somewhere in the middle
of the springtime air
the hawk is giving birth,
throwing up her fledglings
as undigested bone.
Please, Monsieur, Do Not Feed the People.
They’ve never been happier
or more hungry.