Cardinal Red
In love again, I welcome the familiar
high, the dizzying state of detecting
signs around me that the world’s
complicit in my joy. Look, a heart-
shaped bite on my apple. Listen,
my beloved’s favorite song.
Temporarily a country apart,
but instantly closer when his touch,
his scent consumes me, when
something triggers memory of him.
I happen to be looking out
the window when I catch a cardinal
land on the fence and I have to
call it evidence that my beloved’s
also missing me. This glorious bird,
messenger of desire, collapses
distance between separated lovers.
The next day, the cardinal returns
to the same spot and my body spasms
with ecstasy. Don Rojo, I whisper,
christening the emissary who has
flown across the Americas, I hear you
as clearly as I hear my beloved’s
breath, his rapid beating heart
during passion. But on its third visit,
I grow wary: what if I’ve misread
the missive? What if Rojo’s telling me
that my beloved flutters in another’s
arms? That hollow on the bed so easily
filled in by another with a warmer
language in his mouth. By now,
that surrogate no longer a stranger,
but at home inside my beloved’s
abundance of curves and paths—
a roadmap to enticements.
The stupid bird’s chirp taunts me,
mimicking the squeaky mattress
whose rhythm has quickened—proof
my lover moves to melodies more
fiery than mine. Rojo, you sparkler
that tiptoes on the fuse toward
the dynamite, you ember eager
to be first to flee the hungry blaze
and so spread further misery, you
agitator in your traitorous red coat,
ornithologists got it all wrong,
misnaming you cardinal. There’s
zero eminence in slander, even less
in snitching. Buzz off, blood clot.
Take your wretched news with you.
I know better than to trust a bird
to tell me what I’ve known since
my soon-to-be ex mourned the lost
pitiful love note I didn’t write, now
dying of neglect inside my pocket.
Notes:
This poem is part of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize folio in the October 2025 issue of Poetry.
Source: Poetry (October 2025)