2 December 2004 | Vol. 4, No. 4

Lament

by ANDREW MICHAEL ROBERTS

This pack of pot-bellied songbirds squats

at gutter's edge all night, passing butts

of Lucky Strikes and belting the blues.

My window's stuck up and I'm laid low.

Podgy wrentit in Wayfarers and tweed,

You bust a mean harp, daddy-o.

I'm lachrymose and shivery. Shattery. Torn

up. Curled in a fetal fit, smelling my knees,

going la-la-la with fists in my ears

and cramping calves. O Mommy,

what has become of your abandoned boy—

bedeviled by the blue funk and nude,

supine and stony in a damp twist of sheet,

ghost-white as the moon under lamp glare

and the shadowed undersides of cruel

cruel birds? And what of the moon?

What do you have to say for yourself, cyclops

of my endless nights? I yelp at you, waxy

moon-man, lone scoop of sky lard. I sink

my teeth into you. I cleave. I shred.

Mr. Salver of sad, sad nightcheese, I howl.

O woe. O woe.