pour another round for the fiddle player

she's the best I've ever heard.
One of her hands is a sparrow in the house

and the other's a bad-ass cat,
and the flying feathers are her music,

and her music is a zigzag flight--in one ear
and out the other, in my mouth

and out again; it's an open smile right now.
It's a damn good reason for teeth.

She's up there, kicking, in her cowgirl boots
and quick with her bow as a ricochet

off the banjo, bass line, drums, and lead guitar.
She makes me lie down in green pastures,

makes me sidearm the moon like a boomerang,
makes the Moose of Tomorrow

come down out of Canada
and set a rack of antlers on my head.

She makes me lie down in green pastures,
stuff dirt clods in my pockets,

dirt I'll carry home to sift around my plants.
They'll grow to the ceiling like the tune she's playing,

tall enough for a bird to nest in.
I'll call it the Bird of Tomorrow.

And hope it's got half the voice
she keeps finding in those strings.