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Wendy Scofield

There is a wire
fence past a dirt road:
a large gray bird wavers
close enough to earth to rise
or alight, legs strung unbent,

a scale to measure assembly
vs. flight, tipped and praying
in form, flying only half in

earnest. On one side (the bird’s side)
uninterrupted desert, low hills
slumbering under power lines.

On my side, a bit of hack water,
campsites, music from the radio,
a press of women wetting
their feet, washing their arms—
a tilt of bodies and black hair.

The bright light could slip from the
100° sky and flip like a switch.

My sons’ father writes to them
of being in prison (for the oldest is in
kindergarten and learning to read).

I have my little house
all to myself now.
It is lonely,
but I play my radio
loud and dance around.
I have my pick
between a top bunk
and a bottom bunk.
Night and day
are the same here.

His prison is a gap
in the desert,
a bit of hack water.

At the campsite,
there is a rope swing;
a boy arches off it
into the water
and doesn’t surface.
Or rather, he surfaces
as someone else,
every time.

A girl sits with her friends
and watches the boy.
The straps of the girls’
swimsuits press into their backs,
disappear like the thin
lines of stars—iridescent
blue, fuchsia, chartreuse—

their legs strung unbent,
praying to alight
or tip a measure
of assembly.

Pelicans, ducks, geese;
a tilt of feathered
bodies wet their feet,
wash at this water.
At dawn they call for light
and it appears.

The gray bird (a heron?)
makes a mess of the line
between the low-spun web
of the desert and the sky, the invisible
point where they should separate.
The fluid women call
to their men and children:
Ven. Noche y día
son iguales aquí.

The father’s prison slumbers
against hills and power lines.
At night it is a circle
of factory lights, lost among
the other small-town lights,
a town that could disappear
with the flip of a switch,
turn back to desert lit
by a thin line of stars.

The girl jumps from a branch
below the rope swing,
holding hands with another girl;
they struggle for balance
in the low water, where
the stones are spun in mossy webs.
The boy watches, amorously
filling the gaps between a mess
of trees and water, a 100° sky.

Perhaps I write back:
your sons and I
have our little house now
to ourselves. Sometimes,
it is lonely, but we play
the radio loud,
and dance around.
At dawn, a crowd of wrens
call for light from our hedge,
and it appears.