In wind and change a maple flushed by autumn's fever discarded scarlet hands into dusk - a bird collided with himself in the glass door. The children and I knelt before that terror in a spoonful of feathers. The breast shuddered in my hand. The beak gasped its little flame of tongue. Giving him a Kleenex box, a washcloth, the absence of our odor, we watched through the lamplit window until he found his wings again. Tonight, slamming into the glass of your marriage, you are stunned by your image in your son's eyes. My arms encircle the pulsed wings of your breath, as outside the wind deals a hand of leaves into dawn. |