On Songbirds

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