Andrena Zawinski

 

CALL HER:

Morning, circling Lake Merritt in Oakland, California and imagining Paris, France

 

This morning circling Lake Merritt, the birds

rouse the imagination with squawks, honks,

raspy cries. Slick cormorants line log booms

beating wings at mist, clumsy pelicans

slap at the water’s sheen, everything

awake on a snake of lake-light crawling

the gnarl of tree trunks—and Angelina

turns beneath her blanket on dewy grass,

turns there to kiss her lover on his cheek

as they rise there, as he calls out her name

like an urge, like a drive, like a hunger.

So in this poem name him Romero,

because you can. Imagine them instead

as they dance lakeside, Bois de Boulogne.

 

They dance lakeside at Bois de Boulogne

in Paris, France—dance with the same fluster

as birds circling in a raucous laurel

of wing beats, coos. But this is not Paris

but Oakland, California, and they

are homeless where sentries of city doves

preen at water’s edge on the lake wall’s lip

along a ducky little waterway.

This could be Bastille Day, could be Paris

dressed in pomp and flair, a firecracker

sky flushed in a blush of hoopla. Lovers

are the thing there. If you are not in love,

you will be, or steal into someone else’s,

too much Bordeaux too early in the day.

 

Too much Bordeaux too early in the day,

name them what you will—him Remy, call her

Adeline, because you can. That’s the thing

with poetry, it can pose lovers where

imagination wishes to have them

stir or waken or even dance around

in Paris. Here, part of the scenery

and art of invention, her hand in his

rests for now on her grumbling stomach

while a legion of pigeons guards the bank,

feet a polish of pink, eyes golden sequins.

garden varieties, yet necks lustrous

in a royal sheen of purple and green—

but this poem is not one for the birds.

 

This poem is not one for the birds, but

it is for that homeless girl blanketed

in this Paris of the imagination

wearing a wide-brimmed hat and scented

lavender, not at this man’s coarse and thick

hands grabbing mussels young gulls fuss over,

flurry of feathers caught in the brambles,

city doves strutting their velvet nightcoats,

pecking peanut shells she scrambles after.

She dances lakeside, Bois de Boulogne,

too much Bordeaux too early in the day

where a sweet rich napoleon calls her

with strong coffee all the muscle she needs,

someone else busy with birds in Oakland.

 

 

 

 

 

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