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Love birds no more
WE MET during the great snowy owl irruption of ’08. It was the length of his spotting scope that first attracted me. He said I had a great pair of binoculars. Heart aflutter, I blushed like a roseate spoonbill. His sexy loon call, soft pishing and ability to tell a pewee from a flycatcher drove me wild. I dreamed he asked me to merge our life lists. He drove me to the dump to count the vultures. I leaned forward expectantly. Our Tilley hats touched. Then that yellow-bellied sapsucker said: “It’s been fun, Chickadee, but I fly south tomorrow.”
Saturday morning news
I SAW them leave my sister’s party: two lean and graceful boys spinning out the back door. I tried to disappear, but they caught me with a snowball. Without a thought or a helmet, they jumped on the Skidoo and into the blizzard.
Saturday morning the phone rings. My sister is pulled from sleep. I could picture it: darkness; snow in eddies and swirls; the mass of the Skidoo and occupants plus speed plus trajectory; the larger mass of the snow-hidden parked car; the boys, momentarily gravity free, shooting through cold space, pulled back down.
She dropped the phone.
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