.

Mapping Winter Birds At Night

Beneath

this little hill

of corn that sits

on your dark palm,

a map is creased from

lines of skin cupped round,

cartographic flyways crushed

across your hand like hope across

your heart, and as the moon emerges

from behind a heap of clouds, your fingers

gently stretch apart, spill yellow flecks of light

that briefly blow across a dusty dock, but sink into

the earthbound bridge of food you've

forged between this winged world

of winter birds at night and

your unfeathered plight,

as if to fling your hope

across a lake of ice

and snow, as if

to join them

when they

lift and

go.