Self-Portrait as The Magnificent Frigatebird

This kleptoparasite, a.k.a. Man O’War, silent at sea, all darkness through under parts,
head and back feathers: sunlit and fluffed into iridescence.
En route to Woman Key, sanctuary for shipwrecked whore, I swallow baby turtle climbing a thermal.
Maybe I’ll press my scarlet throat pouch against a white breast, upwind from coral reef.
Aerial pirate, Messerschmitt, I force great birds to disgorge flying fish scrap.
Gathering: a reed in my straight hooked bill for mate number four to weave a frail nest archipelago

nights and days I peer into the wake of Triton’s horses. Highjacker in the clear,
I never alight; I can’t—weak-legged glider—dive through that ultramarine crust.
Frégate superbe, I slap my bent wings against talking drum of my red gular sac to beguile her.
Invertebrate-eater, I dip and snatch squid and jellyfish. Fregata
colonials vulnerable to attack steal mates, nesting materials, eggs and young. I,
Elvis impersonator reincarnated as magnificent—flow from grace, chipper softly, headshake side-to-side at

nesting ground—kack kack to attract another from wheeling overhead regatta.
This Elvis knockoff abandons mate and half-grown chick to molt and breed with others.
Fledgling number one wanted his mother to feed him until she dropped. Dare to forget:
Rakish lines—ravenous, climbing heaven—that drop to forage drifting gulfweed for frogfish.
In a mangrove cay off a coral reef, I, Lord Byron of Misrule,
graceless dust devil in reverse, circle and dive to inhabit this roosting mysterium,

a wandering Jew zigzagging land’s end from the Isle of Man to British Columbia
toting bloodstained bagpipe, kept aloft by forked tail and pointed wing.
Erect, I clack my bill to launch my strawberry inflated pouch’s theatrical season.
Barn swallow of the sea, I quiver, click, wheeze and grate to lure new mate. Ashkenazi,
I flipped my little brother out the second story window into a flying ritual childhood motif.
Rely on one egg to a clutch, rarely two. I

dream Barak asks me to pilot his run for a second term. I prefer, I text back, priapic erection or arsenic.
Protected: but still killed in the nest with torches and clubs—some years no young survive. Marine
oscillations over the Isthmus of Panama, caromed between six years and sixty-seven,
Roger, are you pipedreaming a knife-toting bad guy floating mid-air? Are you your own Judas goat
trotting out—for birdwatcher glued to spotting scope—your Sagittarius sun conjoined with Mercury the thief?
Rolling over for Saturn in suspenders alias Dad in opposition might help adjust to being less. Father?

Am I forgetting a father’s key ring charm: a lead shmuck paired with padlocked yoni?
Is there a point ? Dead from brain cancer, shorn to the pink. Gulls laughing, wind luffing,
the snake-haired stepmom for the ages shrieks, Why didn’t you call your dying papa?
Sphinx-faced Mom hurls ashtray at Dad. Skin of firstborn split.
Entangled species—lost European tribe and Cleveland flock—in two places at once.
Last shot over the bow for Xmas Island Frigatebird’s fledglings polished off by yellow crazy ants. Honeycomb

flight dream redux : soaring Escher stairs into thick of buddy-buddy Hell’s Angels buzzing cherubini.
Am I blissfully dying of sperm poisoning on 10 pink milligrams of a seratonin-uptake inhibitor,
self-betrayed? Mom playgirled Dad. Splitsville. Elvis Nutty Buddied into oblivion. Frig it. Word.