After Marianne Boruch’s Aubade

Moon vine fragrance
eggs the mockingbird
to sing: stealing as
an incubus
with whatever voice
it needs. Pity
the bird with just
one song. No
whistle, no bell–a stark
trill only another
of its kind
can tell.

Listen to the wind worry
the pane the way
a cuckoo empties
a neighbor’s nest,
to the night-herons’ croaks
shouldering in. Bone
on bone, we take
our sleep when the skyline
bleeds.

 

Greg Chaimov is a retired lawyer. His poetry and short fiction have appeared in journals throughout the United States, including in The American Scholar and Berkeley Fiction Review.