We rode the air

on dark wings

glittering —

a hundred pair

(Once, we numbered

thousands)

tried,

with each beating

stroke

and the rust

of our throats

(“O, hear us,

O, listen…”)

We skirled

and soughed through

the bone-bare trees

and cried in a voice of

calamity:

“Beware!

Our cipher,

our patterns, heed.

Beware!”

Your heads

never

lifted.

— C.Birde, 2/20