Tempted
The cyclone fence beside the tracks
tingles; a slight shimmer just beneath notice
gathering until the silvery links thrill
to magnify the news:
an express train
tears through the station, its scirocco
of weight, speed and grit
blasting back the ones who wait,
newspapers folded, coffee gone cold.
I feel beneath the locomotive blowback
a subtle undertow.
The nerves
vibrate like high-pitched strings
strummed awake, the blood surges as if
I’ve been waiting not for the 8:15
inbound local making all stops
but for this sheer adrenaline spurt
that tempts me into a moment’s belief
I might plunge headfirst into that torrent
Of steel thrashing steel, into consummation,
like a pin summoned by an electromagnet
but it passes. I’m still
here on this trembling
platform, having passed this test,
having made the sensible choice
not to leap into the thundering gale,
not to embrace the awakening third rail.
Tending the Predator
It dropped from the sky
and lay on stone,
all cartilage and baggy skin,
writhing in slow motion.
A few rows of pinfeathers
nudged through its naked wings.
Its eyes bulged shut. One splintery leg
bent oddly; the other clawed air.
A neon yellow target at its beak
gaped in reflex or request. The bird rescue lady
in her blue smock, her ranch house
full of broken fledglings, took one pursed-lip look:
You’ve got yourself a house swallow,
and when that meant nothing:
they peck the native birds to death.
My hands held out the shoebox, its cargo
of hollow bone and faltering heart.
Home,
I saw them everywhere. Slender forked tails,
ashen wings prowling the lawn,
launching from low branches,
and once, a couple mating on a fencepost.
She plumped down, soft as a dustball
while he lighted on her rump, fluttered up
to circles her, then touched down for more
while through a windowpane a foot away,
I watched. I thought of banging glass
or shooing them with a broom.
I thought of a rock to crush their skulls,
but no: I was flattered
to be that close, an accomplice
in their bid to inherit the earth.
