Subtitle

A CONFLUENCE OF DAYS, WEEKS AND YEARS

by Jonathan Vold

Wednesday, May 18

Redbellies

A celebration of the Springs
on the banks of the Suwannee River: the Day.

Lepornis Auritus, of the Breams
and the main course of many Southern fries: the Fish.

Inky black, purple and garnet
with rich plum, red currant, liquorice and oak: the Shiraz.

Indigenous to the Oz bushland
where the Angove family makes their wine: the Snake.

A vegetarian Piranha cousin
colossoma bidens to aquarians in the know: the Pacu.

A ranging fish in a narrow curving band
from Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island west: the Dace.

A pet store Melanophryniscian
with fire and crickets in its belly: the Toad.

A hook-billed conure of the house
where men can talk, but hens just squawk: the Parrot.

A turtle with yellow lined head, neck and legs
called Cooter of the Chesapeake Bay: the Terrapin.

A South American quadroped
in a multimale-multifemale social system: the Tamarin.

An arboreal Guinean of Nigeria and Benin,
finding the wet parts of dry tropical forests: the Monkey.

Billardiere's pouched weasel,
a Pademelon to the Aborigines: the Wallaby.

An Amazonian revolving life around Mauritius Palms
with a reedy high-pitched scream: the Macaw.

A North American, pressing its torso to the trees,
showing red better in hand and up close: the Woodpecker.

And all that remains,
the solid biomass incompletely combusted: the Char.

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