Five Poems

Sparrow

Song, for you, is mostly male,
mostly advertising. ‘Ladies,

for a good nest and good time –’
In the arthritic maple and linden

trees of this tidy self-regarding
suburb, dozens of bird banjos

strum with an insistence usually
blamed on rowdy hormones.
*
I can’t help but think of Catullus
in his mortgaged villa, back from

serving empire, finding little joy
in his familiar bed as he spins

in the torn sail of his sheets, pining
for Clodia, whose talent is seduction.

Whose sultry gaze and long-legged
...