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Phoebe
by Taylor Graham
If one black phoebe lights on my garden fence
(this fallow gopher-ground that gobbles
dreams with eggplant in its jaws)
if I write to you about the bird that lights
unexpectedly, then zigzags its sky-trajectory
in a snap of insects;
a bird with a hidden nest
and famished hatchlings; a bird
we almost never see here;
if I describe this to you in a letter
where’s the healing?
Does a dark bird alighting
and unlighting in simple hunger
bring with it lightening from cancer?
Here’s a mystery of separation’s
clever mandibles.
Does it help
that I’ve never seen you?
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