Redbird

Your first Girl was an Indian - ‘Red Bird.’
You felt her feeling your boy’s hand on
her brown nipple while Kennedy was
inaugurated on her bedroom TV,
his hand on the Bible.
Three years later she
cut your brave heart out,
an old Indian trick.

Thirty five years and Red Bird
has found you again,
shopping in the produce aisle
between the laundromat and the grave.
She sees you and looks at you,
and then looks through you,
pushing her cart ahead to red tomatoes.

Red Bird opens your chest again
through the sternum
and inserts
the sharp red announcement.

“Did you think it was over,
that I would not find you?
Did you think I could forget you?
You who were so dear to me,
who trespassed on my private property
to find the night garden of desire,
you, whose ache was just now subsiding.”

And all this time
you thought you were lost.