A lover shows me a grackle for the first time, &
that’s how I am taken by the gales of memory;

a mother discerning me an island , my mind becoming 
the hogshead where scars from a gone former lover 

are appraised , & fowls that looked like this new sighting
were the foremost presage of grief becoming the sheath

of an astringent body. I live with a boy’s memory 
which tenders me like a pale calf, & screams with the

incongruousness of a Caravaggio canvas. I live with
a boy’s memory, a whirling humanoid, one refashioned 

to be immediate kin. So I might make the susurrate
the substance to stuff the taxidermy of my healing

& decorate the patios of both present & future lovers.