When I was a boy, he says, the sky began burning,
& someone ran knocking on our door
one night. The house became birds
in the eaves too low for a boy’s ears.
I heard a girl talking, but they weren’t words.
I knew one good thing: a girl
was somewhere in our house,
speaking slow as a sailor’s parrot.
I knew one good thing: a girl
was somewhere in our house,
speaking slow as a sailor’s parrot.
