The Colombian Bird Flap Gesture

Flock of Colombian birds flap and inspect tuffaceous

sweets by a lost duffel coat. With her hips she pulls

the wagon connected to a rope through a flooded plane

lining the boardwalk. The moon has messed up the tides

and their disposals of truth, again. The kids ask if they’re going to get wet.

She spits out all that has already headed into her mouth:

a male thumb, an evil eye, a savage assault on masturbation,

those minced steps, that cockeyed retaliation on a limp-wrist flick.

How can you ever brace yourself for the unknown, the boy asks.

Don’t lock your knees; keep ‘um bent, loose-y yet tight; lessens the blow, son. Mama’s

vagina had become an amulet but they didn’t know that.

They thought she was their shipwrecked angel who never landed on her back.

***

Originally published in Mad Hatters' Review blog, Spring 2012, 

a postmodern post avant-gardey literature, art, music, politics, and films journal