As of a Bird Yet Unidentified
The sea carves at sand
a sculpture engrained with salt
and peppered by the pitch
of wind.
Clouds balloon over water
under the mirror
sweeps a tango of fish.
I swim
at the place the plane the point
where water touches air
at the interstice of oxygen
the distance between body and body.
When it comes to the spirit
what is
ordinary?
I suppose sparrow bones
and finch feathers
not the eyes
of an oriole
the one I saw threading
a thatched teardrop-shaped house
an inverted haystack
where lay two more worlds.
The bird-mother’s pupils streak and stain the shells.
That thin membrane
then the storm
the sky’s slate shadow
like a tightly-stitched suit.
How I was no longer
convinced that I wanted
wings
so donning my human hide
I stepped out into the nest of the storm
to see
how elastic of an egg
I am.
Born in 1989 and currently living in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Z.G. Tomaszewski is a poet, maintenance man, traveler, and musician, as well as co-founder of Lamp Light Musical Festival and a founding member of Great Lakes Commonwealth of Letters. His first book All Things Dusk, was selected by Li-Young Lee as the 2014 International Poetry Prize winner and published by Hong Kong University Press. He often dreams of whales or coyotes, of tides and sagebrush.