Birds I’ve Known

Not a screech owl on the highway’s shoulder,
But part of the man who found it. Who knows better
Than the ocean the moon can’t touch; let the tide rise
As if the man standing there holding the wing’s a full moon.

He only said he’d put the wing in a glass case–
No mention of moonlight playing an owl’s wing
Like the part of the song I never got right. This much
I can tell you: The slow, circular shadows of vultures.

That they mate for life shortened by an ironic god
Who turned one eating roadkill into roadkill.
That I want to replace the point of impact
With a pair of circles so high, they’re anyone’s guess.

The neighbor says her bedroom’s too spacious
For sleeping alone. Etcetera: A list of exes goes all the way
Back to her father, the part of the song she never got right.
When a bobwhite calls this late in the season,

My father’s ghost says, until the end of time,
My mother’s clothes still in their closet–

As if the bobwhite’s maker makes glass cases
For keeping shared hunger circling forever
And even the moon
We know tomorrow swallows whole.