–after the 1967 Arthur Penn film
Their penance—not yet exacted—
Warm wind, from the open
windows of the pulled-over
canary-yellow Model A Ford.
Clyde flipping the radio dial.
Static. Insects. Chirping.
His shit-eating smile. Silence
sparking through sunlight—
but for a rush of starlings
entrained with the dapple-lit couple
as if—like the fiddlers and floating
brides of Chagall they could lift
through the trees, out of their bodies
just after their moment of fleeting
eye-contact caught—
and before it morphed
into slow-mo crash-test dummies,
choreographed rag dolls—
such rustle and shuffle
under that blue-banged & damn
beautiful sky. Wind again
too, before the bucolic-bulleting
backdrop took our breath away.
I remember reaching in the dark theatre
for my friend’s hand—
As more birds tolled.
Deborah DeNicola’s 7th book is The Impossible from Kelsay Press. 2021.Original Human was published by Word Tech Communications in 2010. She edited Orpheus & Company; Contemporary Poems on Greek Mythology 1999, from The University Press of New England. Previous books include Where Divinity Begins 1994 from Alice James Books, Inside Light, 2007, and two prize-winning chapbooks, Harmony of the Next 2005, the Riverstone Chapbook Award, Psyche Revisited, Embers chapbook Prize and Rainmakers. Her memoir, The Future that Brought Her Here was published by Ibis Press 2009. Among other awards, Deborah received a National Endowment Fellowship in poetry.
