For the Love of Rocks

Underneath bedcovers a bird

Nibbles at the sheets,

Coo-mumbling its delight

In freedom of loose confines,

The kind if unwitting finger

Snapped at as though blind

To needs of such fervent play.

 

With the watercolor painting

Hung on the wall,

Rocks of various sizes

Laze across one another,

Like elephant seals

Sprawled along the beach

In easy caresses, slopping sand

Over their blubbery bodies

By way of round-housing flippers.

 

She dares to snuggle next to me

As I dare to snuggle next to her,

Our crooks and curves fitting

 

—Despite reticence born

Of condor wounds inflicted

Long ago by these, our families’,

Identical & vastly different pets—

 

All this while the bird

Grows anxious between us,

The sheets now peppered

With little tears,

 

Lo, those rocks

Have enough weight

Not to flee

From the canvas,

Same as admitting

From one another,

 

Which would surely mean

Rolling back down the beach

Into frothing surf,

Inevitably, for the low, low fathoms

Of an inky ocean.

 

Publishing by NEBO: A Literary Journal