Did the birds tell you
In tremulous warning
We will build another sky in kinder hues
The air as thin and bright as diagrams
Of escaping oscillations
Held against a winding sun
Bury my hand
Time’s mortared skin
In earth as warm as sleep
Whistling hymns to magpies in return
A knife-hard split
At the corner of my mouth
Opens a sharp, metallic sting
Oxalis grows where you died
As if luck were grown a stranger shape
As if this voice of clay and air
Were another wanting prize
