Space Where The Birds Were Poem by Sonny Rainshine

In December there’s room in the air
only for snowflakes and other objects
that flourish in frigid space.
I look out on the balcony
and the rails are just intersecting lines,
gray and as cold as the wind.

Oh, the birds are still there;
their images sit preening
and grooming themselves—
even memories of birds
must attend to hygiene.

Maybe I should send them away,
these imagined birds.
They surely are shivering
and would be happier
on an equatorial terrace,
with bougainvilla and geraniums
to dawdle in.

But they’ll have to do me
until spring. They’ll tide me over
until summer when I sometimes
imagine the rain to be snow.