Poems by Brendan Galvin
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by Brendan Galvin
Brendan lives out on the end of Cape Cod on the Atlantic Flyway.
He runs one pale hand along the sack
of sunflower seeds and asks,
“Why are you buying these
this time of year? What do
you see? Blue jays?” He isn’t
the usual checker I patronize here.
He’s new, or at least I have never
seen him before, but I start in
with my winter list anyway: yellow rump
warblers, five kinds of woodpeckers,
namely downies, hairies, red bellies,
flickers and yellow-bellied sapsuckers.
Still stroking the plastic bag, though
I can see he’s drawing a blank
because I am a graybeard
with a white nest under my Orioles cap
and bifocals under that. I won’t ask
how he can live on a flyway and never
notice. “Don’t blue jays have to eat
in January? What about tufted
titmice?” His eyebrows flick
involuntarily at that because I must be
some kind of deviate to say it, so I add
a rose-breasted nuthatch. “I take it
you don’t live in the forest like I do?”
No reply. I could talk about where
the swans settle overnight near here
before they lift off for the tundra,
or tell him what lives on
the Noup of Noss, or even what
“Noss” means. Even where it is.
“Swainson’s warbler?” I ask the clerk,
though I know it’s way too early and here
they’re very rare.
Blackburnians?”
I could unload a multitude of “obscene”
English bird names on him, but he
rings me out in a hurry, maybe afraid I’ll
ask his name. Haven’t seen him since.
© Brendan Galvin