Drift

By Lisa Rhoades

I can’t see from this distance
what has gained the jay’s attention,
but I understand his need—
it sends him hopping
from the ground to a branch
that gives and sways with his weight
as he wipes his beak by his feet,
drops out of view, and starts again.

 Every day, the inexplicable—
the generosity of hydrangea,
blossoms made from clusters,
floret upon floret
all of them mounding
extravagantly to the ground.
Every day green in answer to the not-green,
the purple of the leaf’s ribs
shining light against the body.

In any season, the suspension bridge
necklaces the bay, shore to shore,
the bridge itself
wearing a jewel tone stream of cars,
each with its humans, each
full of dreams.

Each with their worrying, too—
the sharp edges ground down,
gums scraped and oozing.
Dog with a bone. Cancer
halted in its tracks, but
also, sometimes, love.

Sometimes the work of flight is drift.
Sometimes hands are meant to be empty,
bones resting in their nest. The jay
will sometimes mimic a hawk’s mew
to send the small birds spinning away in fear,
to have a little time at the feeder alone.

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Lisa Rhoades’s books include The Long Grass (Saint Julian Press) and Strange Gravity (Bright Hill Press). A former Poetry Fellow at the Creative Writing Institute of the University of Wisconsin, she works as a nurse in New York where she lives with her spouse, fabulous kids, devoted dog, and cat named Honey. You can find her work online at www.lisarhoades.com.