The Shoemaker Finch That Does Not Exist // Les Bares

The serrated edge of a leaf on a beech tree
saws holes in the breeze, spins whirlpools
of air from its pointed tip.

It seems to be trying to tell me something
as it goes about its business being a leaf.

I populate the tree with a shoemaker finch,
a bird with hints of orange under its wing joint.
A bird I have apparently invented
as the internet tells me there is no such thing.

This cobbler bird hatched somewhere
in my fantasy flits invisible on wind currents
stirred by the knifelike edge of a leaf.

The tree itself is real, or I hope it still is
there on the shore of Lake Ontario.
I remember it, grand, with all its proclamations
of love carved into its silver bark.

The shoemaker finch, which does not exist,
warbles its buzzy slur, blessing young lovers
kissing beneath the beech tree. Their ardor
going extinct before it can be engraved
in the bark, before it too can ever be named.

All the while, the turbulence of a beech leaf
is sawing holes in what never existed,
or what is invisible to the naked eye.

---

Les Bares lives in Richmond, Virginia. He was the winner of the University of Virginia 2023 Meridian Journal Short Prose Prize and the 2018 Princemere Poetry Prize. His work has or will appear in The Midwest Review, The New York Quarterly, Spillway, the Irish Journal Southword, the English Magazine Stand, and other journals.