Anachronism

for Brittany Watts

Anita Durkin

In a throat like a needle,

Air is vibration is delicate trills

Absorbed in earth. And the men whistle

Few notes of the song, the sign

They can breathe, make a pet

Of the warning. I write the present

As if canaries weren’t long replaced

With machines. But in the news

Three times in a month, I read

Canaries in a coal mine: protestors,

Poets, a Black woman, jailed

For violating laws not more

Than words. One against hanging

You are killing yourselves on a fence

Above the freeway. One against fomenting

Rebellion by metaphor or deed.

One against passing a fetus

On a toilet, where, if the lungs could fill,

They would drown. On a screen, a phone,

The three become birds who sing

So men live. But a canary doesn’t

Sound alarms. The music is a question:

Where are you, my others? My mate?

Even miles below any hope

Of sky, like a woman, they sing.

The phrase repeats. Where are you?

A measure of breath. My mate?