Indigo Bunting

Now that I am twenty-one I sip slowly,
watching others oblivious to what they taste
as they tilt their heads back. Watch
their throats as they gulp, not bothering to pause
for a fresh breath.
This summer I work in a mad section of Ohio
where you see wooden Crosses made by a millionaire
turned poor. The Crosses lean towards bales of hay,
hills of cow, and fat green land.
There are three emus in a pen
owned by a liberal arts college.
Also painted turtles, a rooster,
a parrot with a black worm for a tongue,
a white Texas rat snake, salamanders,
and 200 acres of a young forest growing over
what was once a dairy farm.
Wild strawberries are everywhere. I am
waiting for the green pimple buds to ripen into
raspberries.
My hiking boots are bespattered from
the rainy June mud
that is inescapable while tromping around
the trails inside the scope of trees.
My legs are daring with hair
and quite frequently I am free
without a bra.

I imitate the bird songs—their rhythms
stick in my head especially if it reminds me
of the melody of a popular tune.
The sudden sound of wings enthralls me,
a bird is landing—
up there on an American Elm.
A small bird with its royal blue head
tilting back and forth looking for a worm.

One of my friends lives in a yellow house
twenty minutes away from where I work.
Sometimes when I see her I notice that there
is a splotch of mud on my legs or dirt
underneath my fingernails, but she
always invites me inside.
My friend wears rings and sometimes skirts,
but she hates being a girl.
She shaved her head and says one day she
will get a hysterectomy so she can
empty out all the womanly parts she has inside.
I call her the Boy-Girl Wonder after a song
written by a woman with a Mohawk.
If I were an Indigo Bunting, I tell her, I would
also like to be male, because their wings are
brilliant blue.
The females are soft brown.
The Boy-Girl Wonder loves to smoke and
only drinks red wine.
She is a Religious Studies major at the liberal
arts college and explains that
religious moments
happen outside of walls with stained glass.

As I walk alone in the forest
on a rainy day when the golden-green canopy
shields me,
or when I hear frogs sounding their territory
in the pond, sounding like ping-pong balls
or tennis balls shot out of practice machines,
or when I spot Pink geraniums
just as I am getting used to the
different shades of green,
I think of what the Boy-Girl Wonder tells me
about the true meaning of Church.

While I am working in the forest
or feeding the emus,
my friend is working at the library,
binding books.
She tells me she feels as if she
is having sex with books,
seeing them naked and loose,
trying not to tear the pages.
In a way I envy her as I pull
mustard garlic plants from the roots,
killing a plant just because it is not
native born,
while she puts together
Japanese books with the spines
on the opposite side.
Young twiggy Hawthorns surround me,
and Whitman’s Specimen Sounds.
Once a thorn stabbed my hand and made me
bleed as I grabbed onto a Hawthorn for balance.
Watch me do my job and forget about the
beauty around me.
Watch me neglect to kneel in the forest.

Over dinner my friend and I discuss
the female emu.
She will be put to sleep because there
is a worm in her brain.
An emu egg bigger than my palms,
dark green and speckled,
is kept in the refrigerator for the
purpose of study.
They will not be hatching another emu
because it is too much trouble.
The Boy-Girl Wonder listens
intently as she sips her Shiraz.
She listens well, something
I am still working on.
It is a struggle for me
not to interrupt when she tells me
how out of place she feels in the world,
how she doesn’t feel natural because
she hates being a girl,
but isn’t sure about being a boy either.

It is simple for the
male Indigo Bunting.
He flies through his home,
through his monastery,
singing his song and
attracting his mate with his natural shade
of brilliant blue.