Meh…Shhh…Yawn. The Nightingale Preacher Will Sing

by Kiyoshi Hirawa

Except, she won’t.

True, she’ll be seen from the pews

in the pulpit above,

but the arresting gold of her vestment

betrays the crest of crown, cross,

and dove, so the scene in the pews

is the slow strum of eyelashes thrum-thrashing cheeks,

a soft crash of eyelids,

chins pushed from the precipice

skidding to chests, a brief bliss of armistice,

flesh pressed to flesh,

its aromatic divinity of citrus perfume,

lavender talcum, frankincense (the heady trinity)

wilting lily blue church hats,

fumes tilting the brims, now lunging askew

and plunging to kneelers,

a precious few snatched in mid-air retrieval

by captives snapped raptly awake by a

sham shaman healer whose position,

ambition couldn’t be troubled

to lead Eve past the snake.

What songs might she sing, her beak

beckoning hymns from within the kingdom,

every sparrow a psalmist, every homilist a songbird,

even pastors derided as nightingale preachers,

heathens in hiding, fearing to speak in the light

what they do in the dark,

their verses converting to feathers

for all the wrong reasons.

Camouflage. Insulation. Defense. Display.

Every purpose arrayed but the singular feature,

every feather a flat fiat, failing to fly.

A nightingale?

Just a gale in the night.