Kate Falvey

Cora Goes Birding
October 19, 2015 Falvey Kate

Cora Goes Birding

 

This was a bad idea.
The creepers in this marsh are thick
with secret whispers; they stick
together, resenting intrusions. They
flick their slick fronds, ensnaring
unsure ankles and muddying
the mazy path. She is after
Red-necked grebes and Glaucous gulls,
Least Terns, Warbling Vireos, godwits,
Merlins, Ruffs, or whimbrels, though
in a pinch, a Green-winged Teal or
simple purple finch will have to do.
Or something called a Bufflehead,
or a Common Goldeneye, though
it’s baffling that anything
with golden eyes could be
considered common. She once
saw a girl with golden eyes – or, really,
a strange perplexing amber or
maybe just a trick
of the wayward autumn haze. A fall
here would be risky, the muck quick
to suck at clumsy knees and shins.
She could get stuck here overnight,
shivering among the sedge and stalks
while flustered snowy egrets
menace her from trees. She sees
an osprey loop and glide with
elegant unhurried ease, then balk,
and bank at her proximity,
and gyre toward a distant perch.
Whatever else she’s done today,
she is oddly gratified to say
that she’s been eyeballed by a bird of prey,
and  made without a clear demand,
a hawk re-swoop
and change its plans.

Kate Falvey’s work has appeared in many journals and anthologies. She has two chapbooks out, What the Sea Washes Up with Dancing Girl Press and Morning Constitutional in Sunhat and Bolero with Green Fuse Poetic Arts. The Language of Little Girls, her first full-length collection, is forthcoming from David Robert Books. She edits the 2 Bridges Review and is on the editorial board of the N.Y.U. Langone Medical Center’s Bellevue Literary Review.