Literary
Field Marks: by Don McKay
just like you and me but
cageless, likes fresh air and
wants to be his longing.
wears extra eyes around his neck, his mind
pokes out his ears the way an Irish Setter's nose
pokes out a station-wagon window.
His heart is suet. He would be a bird book full of
lavish illustrations with a text of metaphor.
He would know but still
be slippery in time. He would eat crow. He becomes
hyperbole, an egghead who spends days attempting to compare the
shape and texture of her thigh to a snowy egret's neck, elegant
and all too seldom seen in Southern Ontario.
He utters absolutes he instantly forgets. Because
the swallow is intention in a fluid state it is
impossible for it to “miss. “ On the other
hand a swallow's evening has been usefully compared
to a book comprised entirely of errata slips.
He wings it.
