Three snow birds
got blind drunk
on barley beer
a rainwater brew

and O how makeshift
was their flight, how wild
their garbled singing
as they buzzed the famed

stocking nests of Trinidad
that swing their fledglings
to and fro in the warm winds
crossing from Venezuela.

It did not matter that they
returned spent, bereft.
to have had that fling was all,
all they asked of time.

By nightfall they would doze
forgetful, still,
and in the morning shrill
their icy triplets as if
they had never left.