Birds Four, Five, Six: Other People's Photos (Redux)

My initial Flickr experiment proved so worthwhile that I can't think of anything I'd rather do than explore more of the same. I have been mired in inertia for a week now, trying to come up with a shiny new bird, but the last one simply will not be denied a few feathered companions. And I do make the rules.

I am once again grateful for the amazing and generous photographers out there (each of whom has given me permission to use his or her photo)...

Photo by Dragonballyee	A man’s consciousness (generally) will rest upon the scarcity of skirt, estimate the taut geometry of thigh emerging and receding with each swaying stride. A woman may be most inclined to weigh the ass against her own – a pair of clefted cantaloupes see-sawing in imagined palms. And love, perhaps, (or hate) the bag (or shoes). A child will wonder mainly at the diamonds: burn to press his flesh against the rust-cool, gritty grid; to sear a moment’s memory; to wear (to write) the pattern as it walks away.
	Ramona had once imagined that years of marriage, the persistent, gentle sculpturing of everyday contact – hell, some sort of amygdalar survival trigger – would re-shape Richard’s extraordinary talent for picking the wrong time to do just about everything. Ha! Photo by Fonsico
Photo by Kandykorn	Stella knows this: A shopping cart conveys a world. A corner market is a star. Commence with the obvious cargo: bananas and oatmeal, Maalox and milk, waxed paper, pudding, and peas. But wheels matter most, wheels threading each day’s track, handle humming with the dissonant clack of sidewalk seams – a satellite signal reminding Stella’s body to move, maintain its orbit, seek bananas in a universe grown small.
Photo by CMRowell	She wore away one whisper at a time receding until skin unwrapped and sinew unlaced and bones unknit and everything everything gaped until unknowing enveloped a single sleeping seed whorled into a pomegranate planet.
Photo by DigiMom13	You are eight and your playground physics are these: cementing the fate of your palms and knees, you center your hips – a body at rest, push yourself off with solid-heeled thrust, build into a fury of pump-and-lean, kick at the sky in the blurred between, fueling the pendulum forward-and-back, expanding your arc until the chains go slack and your body flings free from its everyday scheme – opens wide to give wing to the flying dream.