High, bright winter morning: the tenements’ tree-antlers
clatter on each corner and the stepping black spines are smooth
and glossy as mirages; framed, the scene shines as if transported
      to a desert,
and never (since this winter day will not end hereafter, having left
the field of time), will the trees
flicker leaves again or carry broods of flowers; but still, as in a desert,
a random bird alights, hoarse-throated after days of luckless questing
for a moth or a spider that has cellared spring rains in its body,
      so honeying
the juices of itself; and when startled by a boy skating down the lane 
 a moment,
she is swallowed by the wind, as a rasping draws nearer on the dirt
and turns articulate,
becomes the shuck, shuck of a snake tasting engine oil and frost,
      as if astonished
how far it has gone across terrains, when last it knew, an iridescence
meant the felled wing of a hummingbird, and thus the sweetest
meat, but never such a black stench as pools below this metal corpse …
High, bright winter’s morning: the desert wind whistling from the north,
radio static from the kitchen clarifying to the small maracas rattle
      of the sand,
briefly clambering with every wave of air: go, stop; go, stop; and then,
a long silence—
(as if entire days have held their breath). Now comes a human voice,
      low, soft,
perhaps yours, rising like the yam tendril, which knows how to bind
      whatever’s still,
and for long enough to touch.

Published in Australian Book Review, n.273, August 2005; Fugue (U.S.), July 2004.