Nature

Famously late, light reaches us
eons past its own extinction,

Of birdsongs, I know only three
for certain: cardinal, blue jay, raven,
though perhaps the last two
don’t count—not as song. More call
than song.  More cry, by which I mean

   It frogs in from the front and fails.
   Concentric broadcasts summit the senses
       and slide the faculty a sleeping pill.

I’m fourteen and the smell of singed hair
circles me like the halo of a pre-Renaissance
Madonna. Loss already on my face.
A summer crush holds out his fingers