Desire

Desire flits in and out of view, like a yellow warbler hopping among shrubbery. Just when you think you have bright plumage in focus with your binoculars, it alights, disappearing into thick underbrush. Rare winter migrant, passing through, passing interest. Women, half-imagined, daydreams, as elusive as the rarest of warblers.

One winter a storm blew in a flock of red phalaropes. Reversed sexual dimorphism. Pelagic. Halophilic. She found out too late about their arrival, they were already gone. Imagined.

In sea horses, males carry pregnancy. Reproductive reversal. Pipehorses. She's seen the leafy sea dragon in aquariums, camouflaged, delicate fronds slowly undulating underwater. She longs to be that delicate, unearthly gossamer tendrils floating lazily, seductive as a siren.