The day the starling flock tumbles twists whirls through
dusk their scissor beaks clattering like rattled bones
the day they rain down deafening and feathered as if
smoke knows knives as if blades grow voices that day
was the day he flensed his chest and neck cut every speck
into oven loaves and it hurt but in comparison not all
that much and then he fed the flock from pans his skin
and when it was gone and they rose hungry still hungry
anew with their terrible plural intent their swerve plummet
and climb now all they wanted was to come to her to come
to her touch they wanted her to just this once choose
this tiny myriad devotion of feathered back beak and wing
they fell around her house as rain as keratin as a clatter
of wind through pinions as if all his tears had finally found
voices as if they'd grown black and bladed and done
with waiting