Swan Song for a Turquoise-Green Marker

I am preliminary art. I am an appetizer bird.

I am what’s destined to be drawn

before the main dish can be served.

I am a quickly fashioned creature

made of drying turquoise green – that is,

the marker from which you’ve now seen

the color that I carry into flight

just lost its cap: the man who used it,

dropped it, lost it, cannot find it, and it won’t

come back: foredoomed, we must assume,

to die the slowest driest death a cap-less

marker can expect in arid summer air and heat

and light: in August’s haughty disregard

for markers and their plight. So I have quickly,

with what’s left of its green-turquoise ink,

enjoyed the last propinquity to it

the marker can provide before it’s died.

And here I fly with it, before your sight,

if not for long. Pretend I am a swan.

Consider this its song.

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