Would win
you a budgie at the county fair.
I wanted
the blue with the striped white head,
The piece
of sky plucked with a cloud on top.
My wrinkled
dollar bought four white balls
That
bounced hollow pocks off thick glass
rims
Holding goldfish
swimming brainless and bored.
My father seized
on the daughter’s dream,
Determined,
surprising the intensity of his hands
Reaching
for dollars, launching out balls
That landed
no better than mine.
The mocking
“pocks” of the balls taunted him on
Past the
point when other dads left.
I would
have a bird that night, I knew,
Proud and embarrassed
and curious all the same,
To see how
this odd kind of love would result
In a winged
creature I would keep in a cage.
I would
teach him to speak, beyond words to repeat,
Join full
conversations and learn his bird thoughts.
His black
eyes would pierce through all the bad days
And we’d
play with bells and mirrors and slides,
Bird
ladders to climb with sweet seeds at the top.
He would have
millet, beak sharpeners, more
The moment
my father’s white aim would splash
In a bowl,
the fish shocked out of its circular path,
And I with
a bird to bring home at last.
I studied
the books with scholarly care,
Was warned
of the molting and mites and spots on the feet,
But the
poor bird died as birds always do
While I was
at mass like a very good girl,
Despite the
day’s fasting, confession, and prayers—
It must
have been the box of Nesbitt’s wafers
I’d opened
and pinched a cookie or two,
To account
for the death of the bird that I knew.
I stripped
my Sunday dress while he was cold in his cage,
Tasting my
first moment of justified rage.
I dug under
my window, where the dogs usually lay,
And dropped
in a matchbox to bury the day.
My father
left shortly thereafter,
With my knowledge
that cookies
Had caused
the disaster.
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