Venus of the Birds

She disappeared on a Thursday
in the evening with a stranger
and a dream of Monarch butterflies,
leaving the bare wood floors
for Wisconsin or California.
She didn't leave a message
or a note for her friends—
only shampoo and a bicycle
in the middle of an empty room.
Only the echo of Chinese vases,
bottles of herbs,
and two Tibetan bells.

When she swam in Lago di Como
the boats turned. The fishermen
came closer to see
the young woman swimming
towards the island in a white bikini
while fish flapped in wooden buckets.
When she kneeled in churches,
statues spoke to her.
In the late afternoon,
she walked in the piazza,
weaving between the restless crowds
of young Italian men.
One of them wanted her to go with him,
but she couldn't speak the language.
She didn't know how to say
yes, or no.

In the afternoons, she rode her bicycle
into the fields, searching for wildflowers,
a perfect lavender calyx,
a field of tiger lilies
with tangerine four o'clock light
shining through the petals.
She wanted to learn the language of the birds,
the chant of the meadowlark,
the blue arc of the barn swallow,
Canada geese flying home.
She always felt like a stranger,
even in her dreams.
At midnight she cocoons herself
inside a circle of candles,
tones with Tibetan bells
to invent a new language.
In her garden she plants
watermelon, comfrey and zucchini,
her breasts swimming at the edge
of her white muslin blouse.

She stops eating, except for herbs
and juice from the vegetables
she grows in her garden,
but her father won't disappear,
especially in the dreams
where she harvests lightning.
She has to go away.
By her window
a tangerine sweater tossed over a chair,
blackberry vines stretching
to a silver moon.

Her friends search their dreams for visions,
ask for messages from the birds.
Outside, behind the barn
a cluster of black-eyed Susans.
A hummingbird hovers, flies low,
but escapes my hand.
Perhaps she has become a butterfly.
I hope she is in Wisconsin
or California,
face lifted to the sky, her voice a breeze
through the petals of sunflowers.
I can almost see her
sleepwalking through an empty room
with a painted flute,
searching for her own music
to whisper to the birds.