Kingfisher

Kingfisher


There is a halcyon on the playground,
Scrapping for Ritz nibbles underneath
The eastern most bench adjacent to the swings.
It’s eyes glint opposite the 5’oclock MaySun, low on the horizon.

Two brothers, one plump in a baby kind of way
Poke at it with a stick.
Their mother, an over-aired balloon in her belly,
Smacks away their grubby fingers: Children shouldn’t play with animals.

There is a halcyon underneath the slide
Waddling towards a newborn—
Whose father shepards it to the Cyprus shadows,
Where a penniless trumpeteer filter’s his whole life into the air, lingering, unnoticed.

Two blocks west a young woman nervously finger’s her braid,
Waiting, the smell of sweaty greasepork weighing on the air like humidity:
Her date has yet to arrive. She licks the salt from her lips
And a wind swirls the bouquet to the swings: Children can taste the distance.

There is a halcyon quiescent beneath a willow
A feather’s throw from the vomit
Owned by the uncaring tire swing. If you strain, you can hear
The gurgling snores of the bird bubbling under the grinding shouts of young pretendses.

Twelve years down the line, the music dies, replaced with
Craggy speakers pissing garden kiddie tinkles.
The ropes are fraying, the slides and seesaws gritty,
But the Halcyon still waits patiently amid the youth

And as my daughter, hair bathed in the crimson light of the vanishing sun,
Whistles through the tunnels, tubes and chimes, I know
The bench on which I sit is closer to the Kingfisher,
Is closer than we’ve been in over twenty years.

©2012 M. Lexi Vecchio