We are back at the apartment before darkness
truly settles.
The empty bottle. Your empty glass.
The potatoes rupturing in butter.
Beneath a crisp toss
of cumin you ask
had I heard the violins?
but quietly—so I hear it
as violence.
How perfectly it fits below the eyes
of the palm-yellow warbler
last of its kind to steer south,
crowned in her nest on the balcony
where sharply slanted roof meets
white brick wall.
She’s always like that: pretending everything is fine
in her replica of warmth.
On the radio a pause
after casualties
how it is no longer safe
just to be
[inside]
The obscure night.
The color of the bougainvillea
& you
sitting cross-legged by the fire,
almost bodiless.