Drum bird, drum bird, drum
beak to post to house to ear
he stays at the post too late
for mating, but no sleepers shall sleep
while he goes unmatched,
trees bright as a fire of hair,
as though he sacked
a citadel then turned
from the wreck to telegraph
a fiction, a shape neighbors
will argue is a sea, a face,
Florida's thumb. Drum, blast, shred,
seasons, years, maybe a decade at last,
now the neighbors grow angry
in bed, hair spreading
like fire around their heads—
the world is angry, no dainty rhymes,
in blasted streets sinews twitch
and sleep dies in makeshift camps
through a thousand awful lyrics,
but what does a bird know
of economies, enemies, nations?
Head down, set to task, he drums,
drums—the bird drums—
and all that will surrender
to the seasons are the trees,
penitent as the woman
in another fiction where no wars
are made and still love, still tears,
still dole and bane and punishment—
all that is enough.

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