HOMING
The sky is at the feeder again.
I mean the indigo bunting
with no bearings for home.
A man pulls into the driveway
after work—crunching stones,
hallooing up the stairs—
wanting to know about my day.
All the days are wranglers,
I say. I am not able to cite
my sources, but I make a list.
A woman at lunch said we do not
plan to live two hundred years,
and so I think to tell him
—well, I do not plan to live
two hundred years! In my hands,
pillowcases I bought, embroidery
floss. Everywhere I go I think
about what is impossible.
Can homing pigeons carry
their nth letter and still get lost?
My job is to build a home,
I tell this man I have already built
a home with. My job is to do
something with my hands.
LATE WINTER
In a handful of seasons,
water and cold and dirt
get under the paint and it falls
from our houses like old bark.
The river sends smaller
and smaller floes of ice
downstream, crocus making
their way up. Rocks are inside
my shoes by the time I’m home.
Five winters now I run my hands
under your shirts, start at the top
to split the buttons from their catches
and end the cold. My hands make a set
of wings under the placket.
Moth or hawk,
I don’t know which I am.
