Say someone finds you
helpless—listing
on the sidewalk,
and above you a bank
of windows, flat
and gleaming like sky.
She will carry you in:
you will be dazed,
and by some reflex
you will hold her
with the narrow roots
of your toes. The fact
that you are golden
is of consequence:
it is difficult to hide
in low places, though the top
of the ash seems heavy
with your kind. On the ground
you were a comma—
brilliant pause in the gray.
It is sudden: your eyes
go round, you hunch down
and then fly beyond reach.
When you find yourself
in those windless rooms, what
wouldn’t you knock against
to return to her,
that paler version of you
who waits, trembling,
in a tree? In the end
you’ll find the window
and you’ll swim out to her
in the usual undulating way:
some wingbeats, small plunge,
and again, again, again.
Photo by Mike
