by Marlys West
Seriously, j’adore the French; their early automaton
built in 1738 by Jacques de Vaucanson, a duck able
to eat and digest grain, flap wings, excrete. Jacques,
Jacques, I, too, have wished for company. When
you wake up and the doves coo, you have yourself
to thank. Her hair is three distinct colors and held
in place by wax. She is asking her friend a question
about fashion; both too skinny, wearing all black.
These girls, L’Americains. I love them, too. We
are a little bit common, it’s true; skinny and pale;
Long Island Ducks, Rock Doves. Big triangular
head of the Belted Kingfisher vs. the fat ass of a
California Quail. Urban but really more suburban,
I don’t speak Pennsylvannia Dutch. A rural people,
the Amish skill in farming is exemplary. The rest
of us? What the fuck? Good at shopping? Good
at yapping on the phone? Good at people-watching
in the coffee shop and never going home? If only
I could sew or cook. If only I did something worth-
while. At least birds do not submit; they fly off like
pretty, young girls who inherit money but haven’t
married yet. They look at us and scoff. You who
budget for your second cars. The truth is cocaine
is fun. Everyone knows it. Press your hair between
the hot, metal plates of a flat iron. I mean before
you go out. I mean to look good. Why feed birds?
Buy seed? Because look! It eats! From my hand!
Now they will dig up Houdini; a dark day, my friends.
Was he not a bird? Nimble and light? El milk dove?
Crows fall from the sky looking like the working
end of small, black brooms. Each penny its pocket,
they say. Each minute its clock. I’ve seen desperate
men drinking eau de cologne, aftershave. Take them
under your wing, the criminals, fools. Once in a hotel
they followed a trail of red petals to the tub and there
she was, resplendent in grayish feather, head bobbing
up and back, white breast bared and love call crackling
though the damp. He sings it now; kack-kack-kack-kack.