Zocalo Poetry – September
Their Music
Rats of the air, winged vermin, the broadcaster
spits into the microphone, and he could mean
sad foreigners, unwanted refugees, homeless
epithets assaulting and pockmarking the chinaberry trees
with the bb’s fired by boys trying
to cleanse the branches and roofs of
the fornicating wings of the air. Pigeons
nest all the time in this climate; even now
two are thrashing their way through the dry husks
of the palm into its green succulent center
to feed their young. Someone on the radio says
why don’t you ever see a baby pigeon, though
they breed like rats, and I remember
in the nest, how ugly the young were,
blotched and naked, and how I loved them. Loved them most
that morning when I could love myself
in giving them their freedom, flinging open the three doors
of my sister’s cages, and the 160 homing pigeons
she’d kept there for years like a captive cloud
swirled into the desert air to find their own compass,
to home in on their own longitude and latitude.
So now two are cooing and strutting
on the neighbor’s tiles, and two are mating
again beside the air conditioner, making it vibrate
and shake, sending the sounds of pigeon love
moaning down into the room. For they do love,
it’s clear, from the way those two nestle so closely
together, perched on the narrow of a single post;
for hours, they preen each other, rub
necks and breasts together, murmuring
in those low tones that travel down
into our houses, into the sterile white
sepulchers of our hearts, as if we could speak
the language of birds: thrive upon nothing,
be driven by nothing, be obedient
to nothing but love.
– Rebecca Seiferle, author of Wild Tongue, is Tucson’s Poet Laureate.
Rebecca Seiferle, Tucson’s Poet Laureate
Photo: Christine Krikliwy, 2002. Courtesy of The University of Arizona Poetry Center. Photograph copyright Arizona Board of Regents
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Zócalo Magazine invites poets with Tucson connections to submit up
to three original, previously unpublished (including online) poems, any
style, 40 line limit per poem. Our only criterion is excellence. No online
submissions. Simultaneous submissions OK if you notify us ASAP of acceptance
elsewhere. Please include contact information on each page of your manuscript.
All manuscripts must be typed and accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped
envelope (SASE). Unless a SASE is enclosed, you won’t hear from us unless
we are interested in publishing your poem. Mss. won’t be returned. Payment
in contributor’s copies. Zócalo acquires first North American rights on publi-
cation; author may re-publish with acknowledgment to Zócalo. The poetry
co-editors are Jefferson Carter and Michael Gessner. Address submissions
to Zócalo, c/o DJR PC, 2701 E. Speedway Blvd. #203, Tucson, 85716.
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