Sprouting leaves in Spring
decorate ashy winter branches.
Musky pheromones waft across streets
as furtive eyes follow fertile females
touting long legs and bare skin.
Three men,
one wearing a beret,
the other with a tweed coat recently removed,
and the third a heavy mustache,
discuss politics and sip coffee
in a nearby plaza.
Their wives naturally guide little children
whose skin glisten like splashing water
to the fountain of stones and cherubs.
The man with the mustache recalls the beauty of a flowering magnolia tree
with a smooth white trunk he saw earlier that day.
There is a faint smell of citrus blossoms hanging on the breeze
as he reclines in his chair to stare at the blue sky
as his daughter stares in awe at the fountain
and his wife plans a seafood dinner.
A hawk barely visible
passes high over the scene
and, even higher, streams of white fog trail
what the man knows to be airliners,
but secretly hopes are spaceships of interstellar travelers
weary from years of travel searching for a place to call home.
“It’s probably for the better,”
he thinks to himself feeling the warmth of sleep fast approaching.
Church bells ring in the distance and the sun is halfway to the horizon, and
the man in the beret and the man with the tweed jacket
watch the girl splashing in the fountain,
droplets creating a cascading rainbow.
The Bird's Song 