Just Stay.

I once saw two birds (I couldn’t
tell you what kind — perhaps, seagulls
or hawks, they weren’t small
birds) unwind the cover off a cloth-bound

book. Its pages rested there, like
sand at the bottom of a lost-and-
found, as they cut the ochre
plains, their black wings as twin

eyes. They watched the curious,
they watched the sane with equal
gaze, dispassionate while heading south,
so focused on the bounty
they gripped within their mouths

they forgot to pause to read
the fine print on the silent
shore. How human, a thing it is,
to cause a couple birds to fly

as hatchmarks in a sky that seemed
to shiver when sunlight broke its
back, prying fingers plunging deep
over and over, with the pages
they spoke of on the cover no one
but a pair of lovers got to see

before the tide arrived and snatched
the dream away. What deep pang
it filled that day, the day I saw
two birds steal the swollen fog, unfurl

the scream asleep on motive tongue,
that you might turn your face to
me, the sun, for once, and, just,

stay.

—Joanne Lee