Mother, how do you keep a thing
you don’t want to happen yet
from coming true? Could we shut
the windows and our ears to the dark-
blue song of mourning birds? Could we
ask the sky to stop dividing the hours
exactly into two? Something is calling
me but I don’t want to go. I don’t believe
that whatever’s here must be linked only
to what isn’t. Sometimes, riding up
the hills, through the cracked bus window
I’ve seen how the moon is still faintly
visible above the tree line well past
sunrise. When a song about silver threads
and golden needles comes on the radio, I think
of thin cardboard wings laid across the bodies
of dead infants, to help their souls
make that crossing into the afterworld.
I recognize these emotions in myself; the final image will stay with me too.