Daniel Gutstein

The Spanish Steps



 That bird is a raincoat bird. Those flowers are drag-race 
 flowers. We can sit on the Spanish Steps while 
 chimeras guard a nearby home. That bird is, in fact, a gray 
 catbird, and the flowers--many bells growing off a 
 tall stalk--are rare. The sky: White at noon. The 
 shape of you plus the place of the clouds. The place of the 
 steps plus the shape of me. The moon is made of earth 
 and the earth of Serb, German, Jew, Native, Pole. We 
 could call the sun aluminum and the hour, itself, a 
 boon. Consider the sums about us. The prehistory of 
 the catbird, in the backward bend of its knee. The 
 water and electricity in the pulse of a stem. Your 
 shoulders, now, leaning through your shoulders, 
 moments ago, to fit one version of my form. The shape of 
 you plus the shape of me. To correspond.