This time it’s a field you’re standing in
and the sky, a swollen heliotrope, scented
as marzipan candies. Viscous and audible,
you’re wailing, you’re wanting to live
only, if only, for the color. You’re in a field
without snow, roads, or errands to run.
And here is a murmuration of violet-
backed starlings building themselves
into a helix or a Möbius strip and there
is no other architecture, save silvergrass
and all manner of purple. In this field
you’re going to live and bottle perfumes.
But then it’s fifteen past noon,
and all you have in the kitchen is
pistachio milk thickening quick
and half a rotisserie chicken
poorly seasoned, cost you
seven dollars with a coupon.
You’d crave it if you could,
but there’s not enough devotion
here. Or resonance. Just a mirror
on the nightstand, white dripping down
the bend. You consider the cost
of painting it all violet.
On television you’re reminded
of yourself, a documentary on
small birds with a habit of running
intentionless, cocky, strident,
loud as anything, flocked,
moored, stupid, furious,
living out of crevices.
If only there was a word,
or a place, for this.
