Here it is again, a thing
we might assign the name of herald.
Except that it is just a bird
with red-rouged breast, come into the tree
which has not leafed yet.
I think of the time I saw a photograph
of a man I had not seen in over
twenty years, a child not mine
locked in his arms. I recall
what I once read of grief:
how we mourn at least twice—
first, for the one who left;
and next for the self left behind. I lean
closer to the window, but the bird
is no sooner here than gone—
small bruise of color lifting
away from the twig. My own
face, blurry in the light;
reflection of itself receding
behind the unmoving pane of glass.