It isn’t easy for me to write this,

but the birds are running wild. Unfold your

persimmon gaze and you will see what I do, reposed

here, my every limb uncomfortably warm,

in the twisting reflections of the windows across

the way: swooped wing and carriage making

a chain, brown garlands looping against

a mirrored sky. Yesterday the toaster set itself

to singe, the kettle to over-boil. Knives bounced in

their drawers, jockeying to growl you down. I would not

let them. I latched the cabinets against their clamor;

I tied the handles with rope. Still, the white fibers

are aching now like rain, and you cannot expect

to burrow here. To always be rattling about this house.

My love, it is the belly of a baleen whale;

every breath expunges the tide. It is a band of

thieves who mutter over loot, scarf down the tin

of other people’s lumbering along.