Bird
I set my alarm by an inner dove,
wake to crows.
Wherever the jay flies
my sparrows come after.
But above the jittery sandpiper,
a petrel with a beach of wing
is an intimate of the sun, single robin on the skylawn,
never flocking with the starlings,
singular and steady—planet light, hawk gaze,
heron waiting on the fishrise.
Within that silence find love even for the carrion birds—
vulture, raven, gull.
by Kim Garcia
from The Brooklyn Quarterly