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Dave Bonta
Allegro
Out on a sailboat
secure in her windbreaker
she enjoys being buffeted so much
that her husband grows sullen & points
the boat toward shore
Andante
The wind took all my money
& threw it
in the gutter
says the poplar tree
& I’m left swaying like an idiot
with my arms still up
Adagio
He came home from Afghanistan
& couldn’t find the mountain at first
Half of the dead bats that lie like jetsam
around the tall masts of wind turbines
appear unharmed, wingbones unbroken,
their ears’ stiff calipers still cocked.
But an autopsy finds their lungs
flooded with blood, as if punctured
by invisible splinters. It seems
each whirling blade grows
a zone of low pressure at its tip,
& the bats, attracted to the motion,
are caught unprepared — for what
in 50 million years of evolution
could’ve prepared them for barotrauma
bursting the web of vessels in their lungs,
so that they drown in the air?
Their dun or silver bodies crumple