ghazal: waxwing - crystal sikma

tsee-tsee, to see, to sleep, to dream, to smoke the night's
last cigarette, to see, to quote the waxwing

this winter, you can see the stars again, the orange light of the city
rises in the east, and falls on the coat of the waxwing

the December wind scattered tiny apples, fermented blood on snow,
frozen, then warmed in the throat of the waxwing

we breathe the prairie silence, the cold dark sky, listen
to the wind beneath songs of the coyote and the waxwing

the branches of the tree hold their bodies, flutter, give
darkness the last trill note of the waxwing

when you slip into bed, kiss the curve of my neck,
Poet, I say, who wrote of the waxwing?

Sikma, Crystal. "Ghazal: waxwing" Fast Forward: New Saskachewan Poets. Klar, Barbara and Paul Wilson, eds. Saskatoon: Hagios Press, 2007. 68.