They hunt the high lanes, wind roads
and cloud ways, sometimes impossible
to see, save for their duet. The pair mate
inseparably, but sing at a distance
in crystalline dusk teeming with prey.
A long plaintive “peeeee” pierces
sunset, the first in a contrapuntal chorus
echoing across embered skies.
What could they be singing? My mind
translates their lyric call into what winged
versions of ourselves might sing, riding
the last rays of light.
I love you. I’m here. How could I
not revel in our aerobatic pas du deux,
unfettered by gravity’s coil? I love you.
I’m here. Again and again and again.
Dick Altman lives in New Mexico. His work first appeared in the Santa Fe Literary Review, in 2009, and won for poetry in the Santa Fe New Mexican’s 2015 writing competition. Apart from a number of journals in the U.S., he’s been published in England and Australia.
