Ducks Shaping Words

Is there a proper terminology for a group of ducks?

Some obscure word flounders on the tip of my tongue, A to Z.

Maybe… flock or gaggle, I think but the silhouette of these banal words don’t fit

the shape of their rapacious beaks, which snap at each other in indignant fury,

jagged curves that strike the ground mercilessly-

For a single piece of bread.

Mom, Dad, and all nine fully-grown ducklings favoring easy meals over the azure sky-

I’m absolutely certain family is the word I’m looking for.

Not to say that flock or gaggle is incorrect- it’s just this isn’t a poem about ducks

or how to classify them.

But this bereft town I was born into, New Port Richey,

should honestly be named New Port Nowhere.

And unlike the ducks that came to stay with me,

Most people willingly choose to flutter away. Like Dad and eventually Mom,

who both are the antipode of the ducks that live in my backyard- apathetic, uncaring,

tied to this pond not by the lasting semblance of family but maybe

a quick night together

now and then.

I don’t mind it anymore. It’s all I know. Nor do I feel the need to explain it to anyone-

Although sometimes, I wonder where I went wrong with my dad’s love,

when he forgets my name or ignores my phone calls- Instead, he comes home to another woman,

most importantly, another daughter- but the front door nudges opens at 11 p.m.

At least I know I have a Father. But my Dad has died a slow death,

He who perished like Icarus, sunken ambitions caught in the viscid vice of his sinful siren.

I’m constantly reminded of my failure as a daughter and a human being,

for when Mom’s eyes glance over this empty house, at children she raised like

Anne Bradstreet’s ducklings, she hears only the flap of wings gliding out of her reach-

And I show nothing to her despair.