Once we went for a cool drink.
It’s hot as hell, she said—
like she’d known me years—
her office air conditioner on the blink.
She carried a flute,
called me a bit
of a thing, said she’d play
a ditty, pulled out the glint,
though her lips full and clumsy,
her fingers thick, but tricky.
She warbled that flute
sounding like the bird itself,
the one with the beak
like a piccolo tip-tipping
the notes, butter markings
on its crown, rump, wings.
When I, handsewn girl
of few words,
warbled beside her
I felt my own body
lift for the trees.
