It’s been a pretty athletic performance,
if I do say so myself, and as we finish
I’m winded, just holding Jennifer close
and about to start kissing the salt off her neck
when the birds pipe up at the window.
All night we left it open to the breeze—
more than warm already now at six am
this August Tuesday—and a motley flock
has gathered on the sill just as pretty
as you please. There’s a blue jay thrusting
his hips and warbling what sounds like
“Lay Lady Lay,” and there’s a mockingbird
with a long, clear, hot-damn whistle,
a cardinal couple too, and three goldfinches
bobbing and puffing out their chests
to whoop and coo. A pair of hummingbirds
leer in over the other guys’ shoulders,
not singing themselves of course, but flitting
back and forth with their long tongues out,
licking the air in what is clearly vicarious pleasure.
It’s flattering—I’m not going to lie—
this Disney treatment, but just as I turn
to smile “can-you-believe-this” at Jennifer,
I see our tender children at the bedside
with their big eyes glistening in a soft “oh-my,”
and when the five-year-old, Josh, sees me
see him, he closes his mouth and claps two times,
and he says, “Daddy, that was beautiful. Momma,
you are so so beautiful, and Daddy,
when you threw Momma in the air
and spun her sideways I was scared,
but it wasn’t scary really, scary beautiful
and I want to be like you when I grow up.”
And little Ellen, Ellen just says, “Momma,
you’re a princess, you’re a princess,”
and then she does her darling arabesque—
you know, holding one leg up behind her
and tilting her head, but we’re well aware
that from El that means pure respect.
Baby Phillip’s too little to talk or even crawl,
but he’s rolled in here somehow
and he’s on his back just giggling and cheesing
the way he does when he’s freshly nursed
and I tickle his soft, round belly and sing.
You know, their support makes me think
maybe we’re doing something right as parents,
but still, it’s our children, so I reach back
to pull the sheet up over our nakedness,
and then there are our neighbors,
Bill and Sharon in the doorway
with these huge grins on their faces,
and Bill’s giving me the big thumbs up,
and Sharon, flushed, says, “Wow,
you guys, wow! Now that is it! That is sex!”
and there’s our mailman, Mike, behind them
on tiptoe and others too behind him,
some of them hooting, and one woman
calls out she was worried we’d snap
the headboard and then everyone’s laughing
and cheering and acting out their favorite parts
in slow motion right there in our upstairs hallway.
And Jennifer and I are laughing too now,
humbled, sure, by the generous applause,
but also proud and happy, finally, to be recognized
for this skill we always knew was special,
and then in a blitz the birds are swirling
through the room, landing on the dresser
and night table and the bookshelves:
snowy owls, and a cockatiel, and two swans
by the dirty clothes basket, knotting their necks
in a bow and fluting, and last, this peacock
that must weigh fifty pounds comes sailing in,
screeching a half-baked rapture that chills us all
as he fans his tail and quivers mightily.
And in the midst of this display Jennifer rises,
smiling that coy queen-of-the-moon smile of hers,
and she takes my hand and pulls me up
and we bow, and I don’t know if it’s sweat
and the shine of exertion or what, but our hair
and our loins and our eyes and our teeth
and everything, everything’s glowing.
from Poetry Northwest 12.1 Summer & Fall 2017More by George David Clark from the library
Copyright © George David Clark
Used with the permission of the author
on behalf of Poetry Northwest.