Passerines

I want to tell you about the thud against the back door,

that my man says, “bird.” That later we see its tail

sticking out from underneath the siding. That its

tail feathers shine like oil, shifting purple to blue,

and we are kneeling on the wet decking. The yellow

of its stomach making it something more

than the brown birds everywhere, a tiny prize

for kneeling there, for prying back the vinyl siding

to find a yellow-bellied flycatcher, its cheek bloodied.

I want to tell you how he held it, said “Passerine”

before it took flight. Little Passerine. Songbird.

Before she left, I brought my daughter to Saint-Jeannet.

There were swallows like boomerangs near dark,

like here, like everywhere I go. I want to tell you

about the neighbor, the scientist, who said they were

swifts, not swallows. Swallows are Passerines,

but swifts are not. Passerine, I thought, Passerine—

a more future verb tense for to pass, a tense I can’t

know yet—a passing I can’t understand. The order

Passerine is a mess, the scientist said. It’s impossible

to track its evolution. I want to tell you I don’t understand

evolution, any of it, even mine, becoming the mother

I will be next, the one who lets go. Once, I stood

on a bridge and a man taught me to call sparrows to eat

from my hands, told me he was a sinner, that what he did for me

was atonement, which is a thing I might understand.

I want to tell you there is nothing like their tiny grip,

the way they quiver while they peck at your palm,

wanting to fly out of reach. I want to tell you what happened

when I let her go, but I don’t understand it yet. I want

to talk about this morning, the little yellow bird in sudden,

dizzy flight. The trees full of yellow. How I lost sight.

“Passerines” first appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Vol. 66, No. 1, 2015.

Kerrin McCadden