And Because the Leaves Were On Our Side

It was because all those stale clouds of racehorse
trotted out my mouth in that ice air.

I reached up because the bird was singing,
pinched and pulled that thread of song,
because, as I said, my voice was cold,
and maybe because I was a little lonely, too,

and when I pulled, it all came loose.

I was low, low.
I was under a pile of red unraveled songbird.

But what really happened was I
was just standing there breathing.
And there were 20,000 birds,
starlings, way up above my reach,
sitting like leaves,where no leaves were,
because of the strike,
and they were boiling and howling, all of them.
And they made up their mind to stop,
I had nothing to do with it,
and then they stopped at once. Somehow.

Copyright © 2003 Jon Woodward All rights reserved
from The Canary
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission