Birds and Vulnerability

The birds gather
like clusters of flowers. Petals
and wings flitter along branches
that bow over sidewalks.

They huddle together, hundreds
of them squawk and chirp.
The rain newly ceased,
the asphalt is dark and damp.

A cacophony, a lopsided
symphony of twitters and tweets.
The sound is a twinge,
a distortion of my being,

a memory that tugs
at the collar of my blouse as if
you have returned, unloosening
my layers of concrete and sediment

the way you did that night
we walked home beneath bent trees.
A fluorescent light bulb
unmasked me for the first time

and the coolness of the air,
your fingers on my skin
made me prickly like bougainvillea
creeping over a barren surface.

You plucked the petals,
one by one,
piece by piece, until
only the thorny vines of my

veins remained, throbbing
with the feeling and the scent of you
that clings to the fuzz on the arch
of my neck. Your lips

rested there mute and
patient. Your mouth moved
quietly as if, through osmosis,
your breath could permeate through

my skin. It was that first time
lying naked among the curves
of mountain ranges your eyes made
that I became a river, carving

trails that would become maps.
Maps that would lead me back to the tree
on the side of the road, that night, the birds
screeching - the chaos of their

voices, a warning: Careful, now,
of those hands - glaciers
forming valleys where I could
lie down, rest, sleep alone and

freeze.