Australasian Darters

These water birds flew out from the minds Of fishermen and became fishing peons Wealthy sailors watched as darters emerged again To spread drenched wings in the sun And marked them as emblems for spinnakers Painters and ornithologists studied darters Until they became black-feathered arrows That pierced the souls of their creators These birds rode surf of bitter laughter And wiped out on a zoo’s concrete Key Largo To imitate darters lovers ripped off their clothes And plunged into the swiftness of estuaries Down the water column they entered brackish hell Their hair transformed to iridescent plumage Ruffled by memories of earth’s human atmosphere We can experience the lives of these feathered beings By flexing our particular despairs each morning At evening we take in the news as best we can On late nights we gaze at dead bodies of water And almost perceive those wet wings working the tide