poem of the month

Chickadee Poem

I can't quite picture the staircase
but see you stop on the way up,
a sandwich in your hand when you hear
a chirp trill beyond the buzz of fluorescent lights.
A switch clicks, erasure, the way a good idea
slips away if you consider it too long.
So you go back down and find the bird
packed tight as a feathery tumour
in the guts of the step.

You think a minute
to figure out what to do with the sandwich,
abandon it in its institutional-strength plastic,
reach in and cup the chickadee in both hands
as you used to do with grasshoppers as a child
feeling their violin bows rosin
in your curled palms.
Back out the glass doors, open
and see the tiny black thumbtack
blink once before it flies.

You go up to your office and
write a few lines. Teach a class,
stop in at the library.
Come back and look at letters
too obedient on the page.

"Nah," you say to yourself. "This is not the day
for a chickadee poem." You crumple
the paper but hold it
before tossing it in the wastebasket,
see a dee, and a dee, and a dee on the foolscap,
paper wings bent on your stalling hand.

- Jay Ruzesky, Blue Himalayan Poppies