You are standing at the edge of the woods
at twilight
when something begins
to sing, like a waterfall
pouring down
through the leaves. It is
the thrush.
And you are just
sinking down into your thoughts,
taking in
the sweetness of it—those chords,
those pursed twirls—when you hear
out of the same twilight
the wildest red outcry. It pitches itself
forward, it flails and scabs
all the surrounding space with such authority
you can’t tell
whether it is crying out on the
scarp of victory, with its hooked foot
dabbed into some creature that now
with snapped spine
lies on the earth—or whether
it is such a struck body itself, saying,
goodbye.
