Ornithology

I stopped to photograph a bird today, and my day took an unexpected turn.
So, here's a poem for the birds.
And to New Orleans --the references are reminiscent, so it seems appropriate.

Ornithology  

by Lynda Hull

Gone to seed, ailanthus, the poverty   

     tree. Take a phrase, then

fracture it, the pods' gaudy nectarine shades     

     ripening to parrots taking flight, all crest

and tail feathers.

                            A musical idea.

                                                     Macaws   

scarlet and violet,

                     tangerine as a song

the hue of sunset where my street becomes water

and down shore this phantom city skyline's   

    mere hazy silhouette. The alto's

liquid geometry weaves a way of thinking,     

          a way of breaking

synchronistic

                       through time

                                        so the girl   

on the comer

                       has the bones of my face,

the old photos, beneath the Kansas City hat,

black fedora lifting hair off my neck   

       cooling the sweat of a night-long tidal

pull from bar to bar the night we went     

              to find Bird's grave. Eric's chartreuse

perfume. That

                        poured-on dress

                                                       I lived days

and nights inside,

                               made love

and slept in, a mesh and slur of zipper

down the back. Women smoked the boulevards   

       with gardenias afterhours, asphalt shower-

slick, ozone charging air with sixteenth     

          notes, that endless convertible ride to find

the grave

                 whose sleep and melody

                                                            wept neglect   

enough to torch us

                     for a while

through snare-sweep of broom on pavement,

     the rumpled musk of lover's sheets, charred   

cornices topping crosstown gutted buildings.

Torches us still-cat screech, matte blue steel     

        of pistol stroked across the victim's cheek

where fleet shoes

         jazz this dark

                                and peeling   

block, that one.

Vine Street, Olive.

We had the music, but not the pyrotechnics—

rhinestone straps lashing my shoes, heels sinking

   through earth and Eric in casual drag,

mocha cheekbones rouged, that flawless     

             plummy mouth. A style for moving,

heel tap and lighter flick,

lion moan   

of buses pulling away

                                 through the static

brilliant fizz of taffeta on nyloned thighs.

Light mist, etherous, rinsed our faces   

and what happens when

you touch a finger to the cold stone     

that jazz and death played down to?

Phrases.

Take it all   

and break forever—

a man

with gleaming sax, an open sill in summertime,

and the fire-escape's iron zigzag tumbles   

crazy notes to a girl cooling her knees,

wearing one of those dresses no one wears   

anymore, darts and spaghetti straps, glitzy

fabrics foaming

an iron bedstead.

The horn's   

alarm, then fluid brass chromatics.

Extravagant

ailanthus, the courtyard's poverty tree is spike

and wing, slate-blue

mourning dove,

sudden cardinal flame.

If you don't live it, it won't come out your horn.