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