by Andres Rojas
Him: a brackish lagoon,
the sun a wire hyssop
on my lips. He never walked
this salt-coarse sand
my blistered feet
trace their search on.
***
The only thirst here
is mine: sanderlings
drink the Atlantic, snort
its brine, will soon breed summer
again in Hudson Bay.
Unless I come too close
I am not
of their world.
***
Like the least terns,
he came north to Florida
bruised in the crossing:
everything that flies
takes off and lands
into the wind,
that spiritus mundi—
aloft, who knows
what furies await.
***
A rare bird on this beach:
a rufous fowl, adrift
with the tide. He did not fly
nor try to fly. I gave him
one dry night
on a full stomach,
carried him
light as ashes in another box.
He had no name I knew.
He did not live
in any guidebook.
I’ve watched
for others since, intuiting
birds weren’t migrants once
but grew to it, that balance
of need: to settle in lack
or to go on looking
for what isn’t there.
A-Minor 