Incest Taboo continued

Fred liked to shoot things, especially birds
which were more challenging than cans. His guns hummed
with promises of taxidermy. Parrot-
sized birds he couldn't name were driven
out of trees and plopped dead in circles
onto the ground. Jane knew killing was wrong,
even birds, and she'd yell to her mother,
"Make him stop!" She waited for beach-
weather, then buried her son's fun, explosive
pangs of anger in her chest. "You're his father,
talk to him," she said as her husband swooped
his fork to his plate--Jane crying, silence hovering.

Jane finally felt happy, though she knew it was wrong.
At Fred's funeral, his girl-watching buddies hovered
near the casket, crying in huddles, circles

football players make before they swoop
and clobber the other team. Jane was learning to drive.
She'd missed driver's ed to stand with her father
near the casket. Jane's mother kept fainting, parroting,
"Thanks for coming," to the mourners whose grief exploded
like shaken soda bottles. Sometimes she still hears them hum
like she did that summer at the beach
when bottles popped right on 7-11 shelves. A bird-
like cashier. Glass shards. Her father yelling, "Look, mommy!

Look at that!" Jane's father and mother
still don't remember seeing Hitchcock's The Birds
or the swooping sea gulls. Even the beach house
is caught in a blurry circle of memory, humming
and hovering, ready to explode. It doesn't help
Jane gets details wrong--Baretta had a cockatoo, not a parrot.