In daytime’s decreasing light a piling of birds
flocks upwards and bursts in hampering black shapes
A spilling against usual gravity; a fury, a soar, and a commitment to air
set in place as nose, ears, eyes are structure and familiar form
each bird on each bird over like cut paper blown and swept
fallen to the floor in a pattern to decipher
then blown again

This is a dance between my blinking eyes and the birds

If I pull them out of the sky as pieces
could I fit them to form a puzzle on my table?
a muddle of wings, beaks, and eyes like fish
a strange woven carpet, shuddering alive, rustling, breathing
I will look into the millions of round eyes and find a pair
and name it
and blow with a breath and sweep with my hand
and in a turmoil and rage these birds will escape into air
calling to one another in rows and rows of brash haws
Up. Up. Go

As a child I had a mobile of bird shapes on wires
calmly spun slow minutes and seconds
the shapes were flat and seemingly sharp
the birds would be in full profile and vanish in their turning
sometimes there’d be three full birds
sometimes twenty
from the angle of my laying they were coming and going
not by locomotion, but by spinning

When I see birds now I see them in one place
turning to face me, turning away
Invisible creatures made whole by breezes
sucked into skies by wire I can’t see

huge in the scampering of the first rush of flight
vaulting and decreasing
and decreasing, and decreasing, and decreasing, and decreasing.