Part of Eve's Discussion
It was like the moment when a bird decides not to eat from your hand,
and flies, just before it flies, the moment the river seems to still
and stop because a storm is coming, but there is no storm, as when
a hundred starlings lift and bank together before they wheel and drop,
very much like the moment, driving on bad ice, when it occurs to you
your car could spin, just before it slowly begins to spin, like
the moment just before you forgot what it was you were about to say,
it was like that, and after that, it was still like that, only
all the time.
.
Marie Howe
from American Poets of the 90s
David R. Godine, publishers
.