Fortemente

In the silent, scarcely holy night,
high shrieks, howls, then wailing wild
chorales of ululation bring glad tidings
that the half-breed coydog pack's
old hunters have come back to their home
kafuffle, to their own known fracas.

Why so close, though, near the house?
Whyever not, though? When my wife
drives up from Sunday services where
she'd led the hush-voiced choir in psalms,
our housepet, much-trained, well-behaved,
breaks out, all vibrato heldenpoodle.

In Miami, once, two blue-green macaws
at sundown sheered into their palm's nest
revisiting their family's daybreak wrangle
while in San Miguel, at sunup, all Venus'
smutty sparrow squadrons squalled
and tumbled through our bougainvillea.

Our own halloos of joinder and arrival
ring out at midday makeout matinees—
yodeling across the self's high balconies
to non-Platonic long-lost halves. Later on,
we hiss: "Assassin! Murdolator! You!"
mouthing our neighbors' worst surmises.

Copyright © 2004 W. D. Snodgrass All rights reserved
from Southern Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission