Three Dreamers

At night he dreamt of birds, thousands of them,
imprisoned in his house.

Ravens screamed in the attic.
Sparrows panicked in the hall.
He sat at his desk. A Jay pecked
Frantically at his shirt sleeve.

The basement door revealed
Torrents of finches, erupting in the dark
A loud gray storm
Of beaks and tiny claws.

Seagulls suffered in the cupboards.
Parakeets in the rafters, trapped,
Raged in Etruscan.

He crossed the room.
Owls
Moaned under the floorboards.

Twelve red cardinals
Lined his kitchen shelves –
A discordant jury.

Peacocks plead in the oven.
In a jar of sugar
Titmice struggled for air.

At his desk were
Photographs, letters
Pens and a half dead Marten.

He reached for his old brown afghan but felt
Bone and feather
The heav­ing brown breast
Of a starving eagle.

Sometimes the scratch
Of pen against paper brought
Respite from birdsong:

Two less wings against the silence
One less voice in that
Troubled aviary.

A parrot perched
On his paper stacks.
“Remorse,” it offered feebly.
“Regret,” he answered back.

Skin and circuitry,
Metal and flesh.
Her dreams of child­birth were
Relentless, recurring.
Push, push, push
Said a midwife’s mechanical voice.

Fluorescent lights flickered,
Then murmured discordantly.
Coarse starched sheets
Scratched her knees.
Machines hummed in corners.

She pushed.
The product of her womb was hard —
Edges and angles
Against her inner thighs.

And at the end of that difficult birth, looking down,
She saw coils and coils of bright copper wire.

By day, she was a secretary.
People liked her. Not enough, though,
For Valentine’s, dates, anniversaries.

With furtive eyes, she observed
All those little moments
That enchant a common life.

So, she only worked.
Phone, file, phone.
Push, push, push.

At times, she imagined her womb
As a gestating clock.
Its meticulous gears
Marked the passage of time.

Batteries moved her limbs, her veins
Were wires in her skin.
She hid circuits
Behind her eyes.
Electricity riddled her brain –
Warm lightning.

Returning home one night,
She passed a factory on her right.

Its smokestacks vaulted up
Like turrets. The lights there
Were stacked stars.

Its fence hummed. The smoke­stacks
Exhaled rhythmically
Push, push, push.

A metal shed was there –
She imagined it had
A piston-beating heart
A muscled metronome –
Life in a bright steel box.

Arriving home, her spine
Tickled with current.
She reached her garage and parked. Blue sparks
Danced in her sinuses.
Push, push, push,
Said a midwife’s mechanical voice.

She pushed some oily rags
To seal the open spaces
Beneath her garage door.
In her brain,
Machines hummed in corners.

She pushed the car’s ignition.
The air there nourished her, then.
The carbon monoxide
Push, push, pushed her.

She shut her eyes.
Her gears slowed softly.

Amity in his veins,
The gray, aging bureaucrat
Lit a cigarette.

He spied ice on a window frame
How unlike its blue-cold form
Were the words of industry – warm.

Like sunlight on a monument,
The bright hues of a flag,
Warm – like the ringing endorsement
Of a product or a plan.
Like the gaily colored covers
Of an annual report.

Warm – like the newly dead.