1.
We were given a submission,
a poem which contained the line,
“A heron undressing/a pond…”
which we misprint as
“A heron undressing
in a pond…”
This understandably angers
the poet in question. He thinks it
ridiculous.
Though it is an accident,
I find I like it better this way.
2.
Picture the bird:
ungainly, on stalk legs,
like an adolescent girl who’s grown
nine inches over the summer.
As the moon makes its way
up the Florida sky,
the heron begins his slow striptease.
He sticks his beak under a wing,
elongated S neck compressing.
He unhinges the wing,
drops it into the pond
where it sinks with a sigh,
resigned, reassigned.
Next, he pulls singular feathers
from his back, from his breast.
The variations in size and texture
surprise. The feathers lie on the water
like leaves, their colors
mute, shadowed.
When the heron removes his second wing,
plucking it and waving it about
like dancer with a fan, it catches an updraft
and then glides
slowly,
so slowly
you could count the feathers
that number it if you’d like.
His wing hesitant
to leave the sky
it knows it’s being told
to surrender.
