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Canary
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Canary Weather has turned the world.Ask me where the frogs have gone. I know the birds still standing in fields, folded like propellers, perplexed by snow. What was south? That was years ago, the dream of a winged mother. It just takes a generation, one who doesn’t rise. And then none do. Drifts fill around them, potted in. It’s not so bad, seventies in March, coats off, daffodils opening in a white blaze. But the polar bears drowned, swam too far to look for food.The ice floes lost their edges; each shore sunk further out. Frogs, the first barometers, on some banks burst, blood churned with poison. My canary shutters against the man I thought I knew, the one who promised to love me. What I want is a stranger’s arms.What I want is no story, the blank between the bar and the hotel door, a snow of sheets. Before he runs a hand over his face, salt-struck, and explains his complications: a child, a life. Before we have to find our shoes. Before he knows my name, no history, no apology, when I can trust him, when my body blows up in his mouth. -57- ...