At dusk, killdeer shriek
wrinkles at the air. It means
danger to some unwitting
mother bent in a balk
of sage-stain
and injured wing.
All day, birds flit
cottonwood branches, unloosing
themselves to tamp sweaty bark.
The trunk is their pivot,
a wringing
of frenetic fingers in the dark.
Clouds stiffen
and hang on black limbs
until the wind shreds them to fluff,
sends them to sweep the sky clean,
small innocuous bombs
launched to slice the moon in half.

After you are gone,
trees will still bend in the hollow
and seize the steep
canyon’s throat. Some sweetheart will still lean
on her lover’s neck, shallow
curve of her waist tight against his hip.
But tonight, I only hear the curved lip
of the nightingale singing slightly off-key,
echoing far beyond sundown.

All day you’ve exhausted yourself
tracking down museums, gardens,
statues, monuments—
flexed muscles of the past.

Because you’re with a friend,
you end up at the table
of someone you’ve never met,
a war widow living on a pension
barely enough to check starvation.

Now you hear her in the kitchen,
overboil lisping on a single burner,
distress of apron-rustle
as her flowered dress, heavy tan stockings,
utilitarian shoes,
disgorge the hollow promises:
Anschluss    Lebensraum    Deutschland über Alles.

She sets a few slices
of black bread on the platter,
brings thin soup like an offering
and ladles it into your bowl.

How could you not savor every drop?