Just knowing there are
three egrets along the ride home
is sufficient for now. I’m always
afraid of the day
their gangly whiteness,
their long beaks breaking the air
like a conductor’s baton
will vanish
leaving only the grass
or no grass at all.
Green grass bending away
so I crane my neck to the right
for that last glance of them,
chalk white, twiny,
quiet like an exclamation point
read in a library
eyes fixed on an indiscernible spot.
The city foams at the mouth and steals
across the road home. The fields full
of egret feasts shrink
with every new voter
looking for commutable distances
and a garage for Explorers
that seek no more than asphalt;
and vinyl windows
that watch out over the ebbing fields
where the egrets bow their heads
to the glistening world
as the winds whistle Mozart
and snatch at all that’s left.
Lisa Kusel 