the buttons
on your jacket
are finches
I wanted to yell
as you vanished
These finches blended with those that Charles Darwin collected. Some of these finches were stolen in 2009 and were feared to be used to make high-end fishing lures.
Finches (after Eduardo C. Corral)
Read the poem about the beating again
then again
Do you hear the sound of the finches in it?
the are popping from branch to branch
they do not hover like a falcon
they do not create wake
behind them in the air of this space
Then again
the beating poem
In the room in the basement of the museum
the case full of Darwin's finches is emptied
Use the displaced beak of the finch
as a needle to patch the hole in your jeans
the golden green of light filtering through late summer leaves
is thread enough
possibly
Feathers make lures for fly fishing
the glitter on the ends of these hooks is light
in puddles
on cobblestones
Finches collected during the second voyage of the HMS Beagle Natural History Museum, London |