A shifting net of birds swelling
over the pasture, turning, an amoeba,
now dark and granular as dying, now
an invisible, a thin fluid slicing light.

Folding, the winged black knot splits.
Plunges. My heart tumbles in the dark, and
against the backlit sky I am a bird—one of
a crew of sparrows, a weightless ha'pennys-
worth.

We fly bunched, then abruptly string ourselves
parallel on threads of phone wires,
vibrating as a thousand voices hum
through our beads of claws. And off again.

My retina crowds with flight patterns
inking the hollow where wind has sucked
away, leaving the sky a great
stillness. God. These are not

words of birds. Some cries are black
beyond language. I feel, clotting
on my tongue like a shadow feather, a sparrow
is falling. A sparrow is falling.