That bird I thought an insect was a bird
Its tiny body throbbed with sound, fast-heaving, clacking
music. Was it restless prisoner of air or pioneer?—
manic in the branches, its nest a worry
of human hair, unstrung petals, who-knows-what, its throat insistent
with insects and forest and wind. It rattled
between the leaves till their spines shook, pulsing from branch to branch
with the recklessness that comes from dread.
          How do any of us survive the air, the manifold unseen—
floating discharge of the living, flecks, tittles, smithereens?
How do we shuttle through grievings that never had their lives, joy’s blank eyes,
or the intermediary branches we didn’t note, intricate, sturdy, abandoned
for a clearing: grass stunted in its tracks, ghostly horses in paralysis,
absence—and not collapse?
Together we watched the bird in the quivering heat by our house
          where animals were glassed-in, furniture shrouded,
the natural light pushed out.

What else to do but hold each other hard.

That such a tiny heart could carry all that noise
and fly.