At the Academy of Golden Birds Or When You're Older You'll Learn The Alphabet

at first I heard them singing

in my dreams: the golden birds.

when you’re older Grandmother said

you'll know what it means;

you’ll go to school

to learn about the golden birds.

I went.

with my plaid satchel.

the walls were bare.

chalk letters over and over

on the black board almost fluttered

but the stories were always about

something else.

day after day I waited sorting apples from oranges
cuttng out paper leavestill waiting wasn’t a thing I could do

not even with waxed paper,

pressing the flowers.

when will we learn
about the golden birds I asked?
coming in one day from recess

from dust-clouded running like the

gold horse of the plains I reigned so slightly in.

the teacher grew red faced
though she hadn’t been running.

not explaining anything

that’s what we’re doing.

sit – down.

I never saw them there, my golden birds

not even kept in cages by the pencil sharpener

or  beside the aqua water fountains

where I would have gone to feed them gladly, pineapple cake.

upside-down at least on Wednesdays.

oh they should have arisen like their four and twenty
brethren from the King’s own pie…

but they couldn’t live at school.

in combination lockers.

maybe I should have stayed at home

where they came so easily

before I even learned to spell them

flock after flock to my Grandmother’s rose bush

without even being asked, nicely
…

mary angela douglas 29 may 2012