We owe our lives to cosmically-slight odds,
to pinpoint precision between a decades-old egg
& just-minted sperm: A single second off
& we’re nothing. A streetsweeper’s rolling pin
wipes away flaccid condoms, mold-spotted
trails of breadcrumbs, the hum of an injured bee,
as a red-tailed hawk, regal & statuesque
upon a corner rooftop, is repeatedly assailed
as if magnetized, by this mockingbird, eggs it on
with its presence. I wince at the bully sun,
calculate how long before light
will nest with darkness. This city street’s
a swiss cheese of potholes, a collage
of soda bottles & dime bags, of ashes divorced
from cigarettes’ filters, a fluttering of wings
painting errant shadows on cornices,
this mockingbird a prizefighter’s swift silhouette
backlit by our star growing cold.
Paint peels off the benches like bible pages,
where poor souls wear their crosses
of unemployment: Listen to what they mutter,
with which of those 2 birds they identify.
