the ovenbird

He said, “That’s not your father’s ovenbird.” I said that he was right, that my father’s ovenbird had spent time in Waukegan, keeping voluminous journals recounting his adventures in the minor leagues. He cleaned ovens & performed other menial tasks, like replacing wiper blades & sharpening skate blades. He stowed the cash he made behind a wall-panel. He loved jazz & made charcoal sketches of implausible landscapes & furtive dreamscapes populated with plovers & hornbills, not to mention the legendary bee-eater, whose antisocial tendencies were never adequately explained. Saxophone-skitterings & snare-flourishes echoed through the rooms of the beach house he rented. He’d been divorced, remarried, divorced again. His novella flamed, sputtered, & waned before smoking a while, & flaming once more. It detailed his escapades amid leaf-clusters & his skirmishes with other prominent ovenbirds. It was a thriller of sorts, & a tale of perseverance in the face of adversity. It wouldn’t revise the grand tradition of bird-novellas, yet it perched on a respectable branch & addressed the manic morning.