On my back with arms out and legs spread,
I recall damp grass, my wet jacket and jeans.
Meredith and I flattened out, watching bats fly in the park.
I focus on my skin, tingles like parakeets walking over me,
bathing in birdy bodies, feathers brushing the bottoms of my feet,
tiny beaks in my bellybutton searching for seeds.
I’m alone in my bedroom, lying like a gingerbread man,
face up like a child who froze making snow angels—
blue skin, cracked nose. The window was open;
inside is an oven door down yawning-mouth wide.
Hot bedroom air escapes like a nonstop exhale;
the radiator continues—the sun out in summer.
I keep still; bare legs cool on the winter-touched bedspread,
sinking in its sky blue and white ribbon stitch work,
holding me up in a doily-style net
that re-creates like a topiary maze when upon a made bed.
My back dissolves my T-shirt, sucking the frosty sensation
like butter on a pan. I’m smiling like a gingerbread man,
out of the oven, cooling on a counter, remembering Meredith
and our hours in the park, bat watching
in the middle of the night, giggling from the weed,
enjoying wet grass, the damp undersides
of our spread out bodies, how the black sky appeared
like a calm evening ocean. We sank to the sea floor,
two sets of lungs exploding.
Those drowned moments relieving,
like chilled bedspreads in an overheated apartment.
I look out my window and see only buildings—
I’m lying in a box of dead birds.
Robert Siek
