appeared inside our house
as if through a crack in the air,
tricked by the horizon forged in my window.
I managed to catch him, his nest of plumage
warm as blood, his heartbeat
rapid as the vibration of a tuning fork.
Perhaps this is how the dead visit us-
a bright bolt across our eyes,
a trickle of minims on a stave of wires.
I nursed him jealously,
a mother who still longs
to hold her lost child.
I had no option
but to take him out into the garden,
let him spill upwards through my hands
and watch him disappear
like a fleck of gold
in water.
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