The Forever Bird

Roger Weingarten

When you and I were children we wondered
what it would be like to burn

someone at the stake. We gathered
the makings of a good fire and drove

a broom handle into the rotting
sweetness of the woods at the bottom

of our street, where we went
almost every day to bury

little boys' treasure, catch a monarch
or carve acorns into faces

that talked back to us
in a language only we could hear.

On the way to find the new kid
I realized what would happen

if we went ahead with it.
I had left you with hard candy

and a wooden match, listening to the clear
endless song of a bird we called

the forever bird, invisible
in the high branches of the highest tree.

You sat, drawing in the dirt with a twig,
until a thrashing in the leaves scared you


all the way up the street, where you found me
at the attic window, on the lookout for smoke

rising through the treetops, imagining
you giving up on me and burning

the orange cat that followed us
to our hiding place. Your face was blue;

your lips, purple. In a few weeks,
your operation would go awry. In my dream

a forearm pushes up like a weed
through your front yard, the fist

opening into a blanket, which I peel back
to reveal your old man's face

whistling the forever song. Then your mother,
coming across the lawn, tells me

you're on the roof with a fever-
Come back tomorrow.