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This evening
nearly full chaste moon on my shoulder,
a red-winged blackbird sings on a rush
his scarlet epaulets flashing at me.
“Come with me! Come with me! Come with meeeeeeeeeee! Sweet girl.”
I accept his offer of marriage,
my son my witness,
as my betrothed flies over us
landing high in a tree.
He preens and sings, I laugh and tell him he is handsome;
thus completing our nuptial vows.
We have our first argument.
I tell him I would not survive the night in the wetlands,
he holds that the lion I keep in my home would surely assassinate him
in his sleep.
He brings up the crows and hummingbirds that frequent my garden.
“Where” he asks “do you think I earned these epaulets?”
So, like many a fairy maid before, I abandon my bird husband,
leaving him to the wild and me to my clean, soft, empty bed.