AN AVIARY OF SMALL BIRDS Poem by Karen McCarthy Woolf

My love is an aviary
of small birds
and I must learn
to leave the door ajar . . .

Are you the sparrow
who landed when I sat
at a slate table
sewing lettuces?

Webbs Wonder, Lollo
Rosso, English Cos . . .
Swift and deft
you flit and peck peck

quick as the light that
constitutes your spirit.
Yes, you were briefer
than Neruda's octobrine.

So much rain that night.
Our room is an ocean
where swallows dive.
The bubble bursts

too soon, too late, too long:
all sorts of microscopia
swim upstream, float in
on summer's storm.

The tenor of your heart
is true as a tuning fork struck
- and high! My love
is the bird who flies free.