Robert Wrigley

To the Man

I was a songbird, one of the kind whose name I do not know, plain of plumage but with a melodious,

many-noted song. I was on the deer bone perch outside the window, and it seemed I was singing to myself,

inside, that I was watching myself singing, and that I was hearing myself singing to the man I was,

as though I were the bird and not the man I would be when I woke and forgot, as I always do, and which I did.

Although now I am convinced this is the true account of myself as a bird alighted on the perch that is the rib

of a deer, seeming to sing for the man I would have to be yet again, when this too would end.