by Kaoine

My grandmother has a statue of him in her garden.
She sets him in the middle of her bird bath where he
becomes heavily smeared with the white oily affection of avian swimmers
and green at the toes with opportunistic moss,
as if in their clamor to show devotion, the elements
forget the human aesthetic. The rain has worn away his face.

When I was in high school I read his sermon.
I carried my book into the woods with me and sat,
facing a tree, with the binding cupped in my hands like a prayer.
I wonder what happens to birds when they reach enlightenment;
they can’t get much closer to freedom than they are now.
Even my grandmother’s statuary admits that much.

He was trying to make me appreciate what I had
but all I took from him was a great jealously of birds.
I became obsessed with wings and years later, a needle
buried a woman with wings into my skin: Victory,
the Romans called her, while Christians loved her so much
they took her and gave her a stronger jaw and a chest like a slab of marble.
After that her smiles seemed forced: birds in cages sing, but without verve.

When I preached to the birds that day I imagined myself
on a little medallion around the necks of veterinarians, and children
who wake up in the morning for school to poke tearfully at stiff,
cold hamsters who were never baptized properly.
I imagined myself with heavy cardinal wings, reaching
down a great ethereal hand to scratch at the ears
of an anesthetized puppy or pat the child on the shoulder,
because his hamster is now sitting on my other hand
like a wisp of cotton cloud.
I’ve always believed in miracles.

The birds didn’t listen, though,
just kept screaming their awareness of my intrusion
through the trees, saying to each other:
“Here is this human
who knows nothing.”