With legs as long and felicitous as those,
who needs Happy Hours?
Even junkies crumpled in derelict alcoves
are dying to know if her
unbelievably shiny knees will be on the test.

Of course her voice itself is the answer to why
homicidal ruminations
in the hearts of all men who have heard her speak
are at an all time low.
But did you also know her silences are silver novels?

When she taught her neighborhood to breathe,
she considered everyone
from the acrobatic to the asthmatic and spun
a respiratory itinerary
so comprehensive even the Vatican stopped hyperventilating.

And even though her band of admirers could span the breadth
of Sorrow’s ash-heap,
she once accepted my offering of a single tanager feather
with the gratitude
of a gardener regarding rainfall after an ungodly spell.

Along with her long legs and all-synonymous voice,
it is more than safe to say,
the way she deports herself is similar in style and pattern
to how certain birds whip
themselves into a unified shape and chase their fears from tree to tree.

*this is the third in a five-day series of poems The Opiate is publishing by Connolly Ryan. Read Day 1 here and Day 2 here.