When Puffins Kiss

Descendent, O Father Auklet,

The Spring Season bird knows land

For a little while. Click. Click. Click.

click click click Clickclickclickclick

Clickclickclickclickclickclickclickcli–

ck, Interlocking aliferous, and like no

Thing before, makes love all feathered

On the side of a sea cliff. In the shadows

So the Gull can’t see our hums and flick

Of head, water kept wings length away

For the first time in many, many months.

Descendent, O Father Auklet,

The Spring Season bird began buil-

ding homes for quick abandon while

The babes grew gray. Spent half

Minutes underside; other halves in awe

Holding fish sacrament to feed the One.

Messiah, Descendent, O Father Auklet!

Birthed brother of beautiful North, Babe

Of blessed burrow, know that love worthy

Of open beak, of gape and lowered head.

That worthy of Pelagia. Of our wintered isolation.

Descendent, O Father Auklet,

The Spring Season bird spends

Six weeks Alive, one moon cycle

While lighthouses act in wax. How

Become they feathered, Father Auk?

When fledge they, Father Auk?

Hark, the islanders need now throw them

From the same cliffs their mothers

Married on–– It is the light that brings

Them home, even when they

Do not want it.