Doug Ramspeck

The Literalists

At first the window opened

and in flew a purple martin with the mottled throat

and belly of something literal.

I wanted a carton of cigarettes,

but the martin wanted only to batter

itself against my wife’s oak music box with it brass knobs,

its claw feet,

and its curved legs. I air-wrote Progne subis

above my young son’s sleeping head,

for his name was Martin,

and sometimes he dreamed he was a passenger

on a great ship in the Indian Ocean,

but in fact these were terrible dreams

from which he generally awoke inconsolable.

The wind, as he described it, filled the expansive canvas sail

in a way that was far too literal,

as though the earth

had taken one final exhausted breath

to blow him far away from everyone he’d ever loved.

The martin began bleeding on my wife’s burl veneer

picture frame, made of walnut,

and my son Martin began talking in his sleep

about a frightening putto he’d seen once on an ancient map,

its cheeks puffed out as it blew

a great rush of wind across the continents.

The martin flew across the continent of white ceiling

then bumped against my wife’s antique writing desk

with its tambour sliding roll top,

which she told me she fantasized sometimes she was carrying

on her back up a literal mountain.

The martin

flew into my son’s dream and found itself perched

on the mast and looking out across the Indian Ocean,

and I found myself wanting a carton of cigarettes and squinting

to see my wife there on the mountain

and then my son, my son,

sat up on the couch just as the martin found its way

back out the window. We were glad for it, of course.

Though of course

we were inconsolable to see it go.