Wednesday Afternoon, Mid April Outside: A Still Life with Birds

He thinks she must be alien or angel
to love the wreck of his body, the ruin
of his mind—to pick him, the senior dog 
from the shelter, the old dog whose only new trick 
is napping, whose growing deafness augments 
selective listening and a growing paunch.
What would move her to bring him his iced tea 
where he sits in the garden swing and suns himself 
and forgets what she said would be for dinner?
He gnaws this puzzle off and on, this mystery
of her kindness, her patience, and resolves 
to pay her back in kind, to fetch something for her, 
a gift from Amazon. But then a hummingbird 
will dart by him and hover low in that bush 
with the long red flowers that he planted 
when he knew its name and then another wave
of orange blossom scent washes over him 
and three white-crowned sparrows drop like magic 
and start their two-step in the millet seed.

JEREMY RADIN

Jeremy Radin is a writer and actor. His poems have appeared in Poem-a-Day, Ploughshares, The Sun, Only Poems, and elsewhere. He is the author of Belly God (Orison, 2026, selected for the Orison Prize by Ellen Bass); Dear Sal (Not a Cult, 2022); and Slow Dance with Sasquatch (Write Bloody, 2012). Instagram: @germyradin.