Songbirds sit across the room
each gleaming with feathers polished
for the specific purpose of catching light
and making their magnificence too bright to admire
They whistle to fill empty air between daybeams
so that no one has space in their ears
to listen for the hum of stratus clouds
until the honeyed blaze is ambushed from behind
When just for a moment, the blinding shine flickers—
For one intake of breath, the gold glisten blinks,
blowing up dust from dried helenium
and fogging the songbirds’ jeweled plumage with the very sweetest of grays
The same gray that blurs the seams in wings of torn butterflies
that washes away the sickly aftertaste of last summer’s strawberries
that dims the melancholy choke of unrequited meliorism
that is so easily concealed by the glowing trills of songbirds