The wing is only a mechanism,
much like a weight or an anchor.
Observe too how it doesn’t remain
dark anymore quite as long
as it used to. By the time
you get up, which is still
early, unseen birds
have cranked up a body of sound
in the trees. From across the bridge,
you see white stenciled shapes
moving in shallow water.
One summer many years ago,
visiting your grandfather’s farm:
you stepped without thinking
in a humid mound of dung.
You’d stopped for a long moment,
just watching cattle egrets on the mud-
caked backs of water buffalo.