valerie wetlaufer
Avian Nightmare
A sky that blue is not American.
This dream must be set on the shores
of the Mediterranean.
And that parakeet perched
on a park bench represents you.
Are you fleeing from the mistral
or me, both with our dry coldness?
If I call you by a name known only
in dreams, if I speak the word darling,
you fly to my finger swiftly,
weary of the weather.
Your breast is greener than I’d
expected, black dots like a necklace
before your shock of yellow head.
I’ve never had a bird to sing to me,
forgive me if I don’t know the routine.
Do you take requests?
Whistle for me and blink distantly.
What does it mean my mind gives you wings?
Late Russian
When I loved a Kremlinologist,
she wrote me letters in Cyrillic
but refused to decipher them.
For months we planned a trip
to Moscow, but never left.
She shushed me to sleep with tales
of Marxism, Stalinism,
and Polish surnames.
When I loved an horologist,
I got a watch for my birthday three
years in a row; tiny cogs and hands
spun around. We argued over digital
versus analog, leather wristbands or cloth.
She was never late for an appointment,
but the ticking in our house drove me mad.
This is not a sweet story. We stood in a forest,
one woman on either side of me. We gazed
past each other, into the place where the trees
housed a clearing. They left together.
One had an accent, one small hands.
The snow retained our footprints.
Don’t you dare be gentle with me.
Not with your strong forearms.
I seek no tenderness here.
