Silver Bird

Did you see the silver bird?

Hear it’s metal heartbeat tick?

A ring perched on that birch’s hand

an engagement between sky and land.

Did you listen as it beat its wings?

Like self-possessed brass tambourines,

awakening the budding leaves,

driving coldness to hiding.

Did you see the truck that flipped

this morning on the low east side?

Did you watch as Henry died?

His eight years crushed beneath its weight.

Did you spy a silver flash,

a flutter of blinding white light?

That morning when the park awoke,

that mourning when a young heart broke.