Walking through the dunes,
a necklace is lost,
becomes detritus in the sand.
The wind, a pickpocket.
I find a stick in the brush,
take it home, like a dog.
Back at the house, I go to the robin’s grave.
His vermillion chest must be faded now,
beneath that brown dirt, cast with that serious light.
Brown feels like forever. All seasons.
Somewhere in the city a little girl wears pink
in a train station with her father.
She sits on a wooden bench, swinging her feet.
The father leans against an iron pillar by the tracks,
lights a cigarette and inhales deeply.
The train comes, the cigarette is thrown.
His silver chain catches white-blue light
as they pass through the open doors.
Somewhere in the city a grown woman bathes,
her body red from the hot water.
She drinks a cold glass of whiskey
and talks on the phone with a young friend.
The woman’s voice echoes against the white tiles
as she tells the girl about her lovers:
A Swiss watchmaker who brings her flowers,
boring but kind.
A young bass singer in the church choir
who likes to kiss in public. He’s very tall.
She hangs up the phone, drains the bath,
prepares to meet a married man.
Somewhere in the city a cedar waxwing migrates.
Dizzy off of those little red berries,
he meets a glass window and is found
lying beneath it, still.
The drunk waxwing is remembered as
a reveler of the bird world.
And here, in the country,
I sit in front of the robin’s grave,
a faint cross fingered into the earth.