the narrator to the catalogist:
"Hurry, here comes the archivist."
She would only make love when the sandpipers were out. Then, and only then, she was her own pornographer, actor-director of the scenes ridiculed only hours before.
Whether due to peculiar behaviors of bird or man could not be known,
thinking it feeding behavior
precise, opaque
overlearned $ methods
or afraid, routinely disappointed
lost, contemplative
only on hi thread count sheets
after 15 I love you's
or waiver-granting silver screen looks
so said her detractors
or a sandpiper [noun] cage
lovely, distractible
or tuned to a different but related scale
August 2011