$100 REWARD LEADING TO RETURN OF LOST BIRD
art by Virgil Suárez
by Marc Weissman
If he perches on you or shows up please call Ellie immediately ANY TIME. -Ellie
And if I find you I must stay here with the separate leaves. -A. R. Ammons
What if he shows up Ellie
but I don’t
What if I find him but he’s no longer
a starling
he’s a star a constellation
the wind
grown beyond recognition
into Horus falcon-headed
god of war sky and hunting
That feels too aggressive for a
songbird
We must find him with haste
he wasn’t ready for release
I pray for him and you and me
I don’t think I’m ready for another Sudanese war
or Shannen Doherty dead at 53
or inflation in the economic or cosmic sense
or the unlikely event your bird was caught
midair by hawk
smaller than a robin
bigger than a sparrow
Like so many posters of signs notices
missed connections
you unleash myth and
more questions
And if I find him
on Independence Day
with dark and light brown feathers
dark legs and black beak
by the blue eggshell
Ford Granada
his trauma
won’t rip me apart
And if I find him I’ll manifest
a dark cover over him
and all starlings
in and under the stars
lost and found
alighting
Marc Weissman is an East Williamsburg-based poet, photographer, brand designer, and facilitator. He is a Saltonstall fellow, and his work has appeared in Epiphany, Poetry Is a Team Sport, and Dead End. He reads at Brooklyn Poets, Creative Mornings, and his daughter’s school.
Virgil Suárez was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1962. At the age of twelve he arrived in the United States. He received an MFA from Louisiana State University in 1987. He is the author of eight collections of poetry, most recently 90 MILES: SELECTED AND NEW, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. His work has appeared in a multitude of magazines and journals internationally. His 10th volume of poetry, THE PAINTED BUNTING’S LAST MOLT, was be published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in the Spring of 2020. He is also the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Grant and an Individual Artist Grant from the State of Florida and a Latino Book Prize.
