He never had a proper name, although for some reason I think someone called him Pedro. He sang Jesus loves me with gusto and I can still see him briefly free and more than a little outmanned, a green feathery bundle on the avenida on Fort Amador when he had sprung his cage
I scooped him up and took him home
No matter what happened after, he was mine
The river hunter is
Undeniably majestic
Swooping down and
Hitting the water with ballistic force
Often to rise empty-taloned
This time though
It catches a silvery fish
Glinting in its grip, in a dying sun
The first lap the osprey skims just above the water
As though the weight of the fish is too much
Then back and forth
Back and forth in high parabolic circles
Almost as though this were something other than
The dying fish’s first and last
Flight
At times I go back and parse
The pain, the bone-deep ache
The fever, chills, fatigue
The way it felt like constant, relentless muggings committed by tiny, unseen assailants
No hunger
A brief sense of being untied from all ordinary things
As though powerlessness could be construed as
Super-heroic
At first I thought it was my age, that some magic threshold of peri-menopausal bliss had been breached and entered and that the clumps of hair went with the hot flashes and wrinkles. Then a survivor 20 years my junior told me she was struggling with hair loss and it occurred to me that perhaps it was one more Covid peculiarity?
I think I am handling it well. I have trimmed the remaining locks by inches and let its spun lightness rule the day.
I am alive
Elealee's Blog 