Flightless bird, American Mouth
Iron & Wine

I was a quick wet boy
Diving too deep for coins
All of your straight blind eyes
Wide on my plastic toys
And when the cops closed the fair
I cut my long baby hair
Stole me a dog-eared map
And called for you everywhere

Have I found you?
Flightless bird, jealous, weeping
Or lost you?
American mouth
Big bill looming

Now I’m a fat house cat
Cursing my sore blunt tongue
Watching the warm poison rats
Curl through the wide/white fence cracks
Kissing on magazine photos
Those fishing lures thrown in the cold and clean
Blood of Christ mountain stream

Have I found you?
Flightless bird, brown hair bleeding
Or lost you?
American mouth
Big bill, stuck going down

-0-

   What does a life-time of search brought me?  
   A life-time looking for the right details to fill in the numbers of a life should be.    The colors acquiring shape, the shapes building a whole different whole.

   "An American mouth..." an ample embrace and love, a smile as simple and true, without fears, without resentments, without doubts.  I've found more than I had baragained for.  I played my cards and played them right.

   A farm and a ticking house, scared sheep, lost guineas and dead ducks, letting the fire in the yards behind that old house dress us all the same in it's warmth, hearing the thunder land nearby unsure of how to come without frightening us, wanting our company, wanting our life.

   The friendly dogs with clumsyness and slobber, undressing memories on top of the table around a piece of peanut butter pie.  Walking the length of the porch at night, smoke from our hands filling our lungs with floatings words.

   Dreaming in the ticking house, sleeping on a lumpy couch woken up be kisses from tongues other than yours.

   A ticking house, a peanut butter pie, animals and a farm, an aritficial pond and dead ducks.