beakless

you insisted, "that is a bird"
but i think i know what a dead summer looks like.
eyes like crawfish.
halos of snakes. 
we ate supper 
from silkworm knots
beneath the telephone trees.
i tried to speak for days
& nothing came out but flies.
gnats & then those thick flies
that look like punctuation
or blueberries. you were patient at first
but then it was too much.
you threw the globe at me
& then the binoculars.
i used them to look for birds.
i thought, "there has to be just one."
none of them had beaks anymore.
still, i heard them singing.
the beaks had run off 
to become new kinds of escape.
the birds were left
no longer birds
but husks 
of their former taxonomy.
i approached one slowly.
put my hand 
where the beak should be.
i nodded, as if to say, "speak."
the bird called.
it was a mourning dove. 
the call rung through me
& i saw my voice as 
a flock of dandelions
or then as a syringe
full of gold. let the not-bird go.
you later you continued,
"i know that was a bird."
i still did not respond.
i just filled my mouth with feathers
& spat them out the window
when you weren't looking.
i pretended i was leaving 
the nest. there i go. scattered.