my baby wears a top hat

On Advice

 

Perhaps if I knew how

to turn my head

to preen my wings

and had no thumbs or knees

to beg upon.

Perhaps if my ears

were holes too narrow

for words to enter

and like the mallard

I wore a white

and priestly

collar.

Perhaps if I could decide to fly

then do it. Then I might

know that thing you say

that water does,

or a broken heart,

the way it can

contain

itself beading up

and falling off like water,

like water off a duck’s back.

But I have seen the way

that water rolls

like wine

like justice

down his back

and I cannot forget.

 
Sometimes when we give birth to a poem, it becomes a little person.  It grows its own legs and hobbles away, its meaning obscured even from our own understanding.  That is what happened with this poem figuratively and (semi) literally, especially when I centered it on the page.  It emerged "collar" and all and proceeded to wander into heresy.  Perhaps.  I hope not, but I can't tell from here.  We have such high hopes for our progeny.