My father used to cut down the pine trees behind our shed

Because some woodpecker told him that the sap tasted sweet.

It was a strange bird that landed on the branch beside him and

Tapped out some slow jazz on the birch bark, a miniature

Musician singing about an old war. A war men never saw.

It was a long time ago. The trees and the birds and the coyotes

With low-hanging heads were all gnawing at each other

In a quest to get at marrow, because the water turned to acid

And the rain did not come

And the only pure edible thing was hidden deep inside

And the woodpecker found the sap where others found blood

And he told that secret to my father, because my father,

He was already more bird than man. He migrated

When the seasons changed and spent the evenings

Perched alone, preening his dun grey feathers with his bill

Sleeping upright and flashing wide eyes whenever a cat

Chanced to walk past.

I never went near those trees. They reeked of rot to me,

A deep sort of rot I was afraid to breathe in lest it

Transfigure me into something both more and less

Than a girl. I was happy being a girl, you see, happy

Enough to wish I would never be any other animal

I'd listen to the woodpecker rap-rap-rapping at the

Bark and my father swing-swing-swinging his ax

And I would shiver, because that sort of communion

Disgusted me back in those days.

Now I've grown old enough that my feathers are dull

And falling to the ground like snow, white to grey,

To a carpet for the young to dance on

My husband goes out back, behind the old shed,

And he plants trees, digs the hole with his nose

And uses his muzzle to cover them with dirt

My coyote husband sows and sows and sows,

And each spring I spread my wings and I fly

Over the new saplings he's wrought for me

But still the old woodpecker rap-rap-raps on the birch bark,

Calling to me, a siren song of staccato beats

That hearken back to days I've spent a lifetime forgetting

Dearest, the bird whispers, dearest, dearest, dearest,

As if we are one and the same because we both have

Feathers and we both remember the man with the axe

One of these days I'll send my coyote husband to him

They'll negotiate with bays and squawks, with

Blood and teeth and feathers flying about

Like dandelion feathers in the wind.

My other half will seek for the marrow, thin as it is

In bird bones, because time has turned to acid

And the rains won't come.

He will carry the woodpecker back to me,

Gripped so lightly in his muzzle no more bones break,

And I shall lick the sap from his forever-still beak

But not today.

Today I go with my axe

To cut down the pine trees behind the old shed.