Mineral Bath
Christy Prahl
You and I practice fluency in birds
as spring folds its laundry
into the trees.
Goldfinch, nuthatch,
downy woodpecker,
we cry,
pointing our fingers
toward 4:00 at the crouching pin oak
in the front yard
until we each right our eyes
and confirm it
like we do, nearly,
canoeing one day
and I spy what I am sure
is a rare green heron but you insist
is an American bittern.
White line down the chest and pointed beak.
Long black patch on the neck.
(holding positions)
The weather on the lake turns gusty
and churns its shoreline rocks
into a metal canister
that swiftly becomes our boat,
wordlessly rowing back to the take-out.
Stern to avoid tipping over,
spilling out,
our silence gone to talc by bedtime.
We wake after restless dreams,
drawn outdoors by a flock
of sandhill cranes in migration,
their yawp a reminder –
winter is coming.
Sandhills look brown
in warm weather because they
preen themselves
with dirt
(I say)
Something colonizes your throat
like a swallowed gnat
and I picture you unpocketing your phone
to prove me wrong.
Instead you scoop a handful of soil from the ground
and rub it down your right arm.
Then another down the left,
and I too tunnel into the ground
with my hand
rubbing dirt
along my bare legs,
the soft exposed
bundle of my stomach.
We watch the cranes in formation overhead
letting only vowels out of our mouths,
bronzed and contrite in our plumage.
Christy Prahl is the author of the collection "We Are Reckless," forthcoming from Cornerstone Press. A Best of the Net and two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her past and future publications include the Eastern Iowa Review, Peatsmoke Journal, Passengers Journal, West Trestle Review, and others. She has held residencies at both Ragdale and the Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow and is the founder of the PenRF reading series. She splits her time between Chicago and rural Michigan and appreciates subways and siloes in equal measure. More of her work can be found at https://christyprahl.wixsite.com/christy-prahl.