A family of Cedar Waxwings has gathered
in the large, bare Oak in the corner
of the town cemetery. Like the scratchy
hesitancy of a needle on wax or my son’s attempt
at whistling through a mouth of missing teeth,
their song turns in choir with the wind, low but sharp
this morning. Speckled high in the branches,
yards above the gray stones under the tree,
plotted years before sidewalks and wider, paved
streets, their dawn-tipped tails and blood-tipped
The sanctuary is quiet now. / Maple leaves, scattered yellow cake crumbs, / the only evidence of the passing ...
Perhaps this was the only way
She knew
To cure her memories
To season for savoring
What could preserve her still
Through winters unknown
Colder by far
Than the calibrated heat
Splash of that sulfuric stench
Rancid and sticky
Consuming all that once had been
Just a moment ago
Just over her shoulder.
From above, the clouds are always white. Color
is a construct. Words are bricks & mortar, studs
& drywall. Methane is invisible to the human eye.
Even this little bit of Nebraska, which may be Kansas,
is more than I can take in, cloud-covered or not,
the neat plots of fields & roads, wheat already green,
woods along the rivers still blurred & gray.
The arrow of an airstrip pointed northwest. The key
to shalom is dismantling: racism, patriarchy,