Tumblers

Tumbler pigeons tumble head over heels

while flying, some adaptive advantage

gained by acrobatics, call it evasive

maneuvers, call it exuberance, or glee

or accidental freakishness multiplied

by breeders — no one can resist a freak

or a shooting, it does no good to be told

Look away! we need to see

how the world can be turned upside down

even if no one knows how

to make it right again, the tumbling bird

tumbling to ground, landing on its head.

Obscurity and the Amateur

by C. D. Wright

A glass is filled with white water from

the tap and carried to a shaky table under the pencil

tree where the glass gradually clears.

The rhododendron shouldn’t have been planted under

the canopy but showed blooms this year.

A few throwaway lines are put down and rubbed out.

The arborist doesn’t show up or call

to cancel. The chair sits low but the scrawl is adjusted

at the wrist. A book is being written

by an amateur for the lay. A legal pad held down

with a rock in the unlikely event

of a puff of air. Before long the mind sees a couple

making out against a stone wall;

the mind warns itself that love is not inborn so bends

toward the breaking point but love also

abhors a vacuum so gloms on to glimmers of not being

wholeheartedly blue. While maintaining

the profile of a raptor. It is a borderline experience.

Currents of doubt move around and

through. Behind the flawless motion of staggering

clouds, the sky. With great effort, an insect trails a leg

down the length of the table.