Birdcalls

I crept around the dark train yard

while my brother watched for bulls.

Two days deep into the Badlands

and all our water gone. We had a birdcall

for if you saw something and another

for if you heard. A silent yard eight strings wide

with a few junkers parked. The horizon

a dull burn. The rails lit dimly by dew.

I was looking for the water bottles

the conductors used and threw out the windows

with maybe a sip left inside them.

I found one by stepping on it.

I sucked it like a leech. I stumbled

up and down the ballast and found five more,

unbuttoning my shirt and nesting them

against my chest upright and capless.

We had the sandpiper for if you should run

and the flycatcher for if you should hide.

I can’t remember why we had the loon.

I crouched in the space between coal trains,

cradling the bottles and feeling the weight

of how little I had to spill.

I rubbed coal on my face. I felt crazy.

I thought about being found like this.

I tried to imagine what my story would be.

A version with my brother in it.

A version with no brother. I swear

I could smell rain a thousand miles away.

I could smell rain in the soot. I folded my hands

around my lips and made the gray ghost,

which told him where I was.

And also meant stay alert.

And also meant some other things

only owls understood.