Not many sleep anymore
with the shutters open.
Sometimes at the grocery store,
near the rafters, there’ll be
an errant bird that wanders in
on some warm draft. It flutters
confused above the ordered glaze
of bell peppers and bumpy lemons,
the curled decline of greens.
I rouse from sleep late at night
and feel my way to the bathroom,
trying to recall what I know
of accidental things— what finds
the one seam in the lock, the loose
partition; the weakness in
the careful armor. And there isn’t
any particular explanation for why
a pigeon should be wandering the hallway
at 4 o’clock, yet there it is,
as the man snores in the guest room
and the woman lies in her own bed,
in sheets soaked with her own urine.