Through that window you see another bird
rising, unlabeled, unwanted, yet noticed.
A limb’s last leaf. The boy’s breath.
Like the day after your father died,
when temperature didn’t register
and heat shallowed through the end.
Still you shivered. Glass. Wind.
Night’s body. How to calibrate nothing’s
grace? Take notes. Trace its echo. Try.
Originally published in Into the Void.
Robert Okaji is a displaced Texan living in Indiana. He no longer works on a ranch, and once owned a bookstore. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Vox Populi, North Dakota Quarterly, Taos Journal of International Poetry & Art, The High Window and elsewhere.