ELEGY FOR THE DUSKY SEASIDE SPARROW
            Michael Rothenberg
                c. 1987
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Take note:

Rock Hudson died of AIDS.

Rita Hayworth's picture was pasted
                          on the first Atom Bomb.

Yul Brynner died the day my father died,
          Orson Welles a week after.

So what about the Dusky Seaside Sparrow?
Extinct in the middle of June,
               nineteen hundred and eighty-seven.

It's a Disney World
            of space shuttles and evolution.

But this heart of mine
wants to stop.
Consider

the demise of the river,
the fanged beast at the door of the sea.

It's a sentimental heart in a roomful of mirrors.
It's always an elegy.
Thinking of you, Dear,
                        it's an elegy.


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