Company

Rain had turned the snow into
shrunken little nuns.
There was something waxy about the morning,
something akin to a pitcher of water at a wake.
We coasted along the river in a nest,
our feet in the cold wind,
and listened to our personal despot’s symphony
sing from his head which was a parakeet’s;
and the movement was about my mother
and yours. Birdbrain. He shut up when we reached
the bridge.