Poem: Drawing Blinds

Lovers begin to mimic one another:
speaking each other’s words
so as to sound familiar,
the homage of imitation.
I’ve heard it for myself—

the hawk’s screech re-sounded through
the blue jay’s thinner throat;
he’s an amateur impersonator, only relaying
the sound of the message, not the spirit:
seizing, talons tearing up a carcass.

Trapped in the beak of remembrance,
I find myself drawing up the blinds,
talking to the day much like you did
when you still moved,
my voice full of sound—seizing—
but no spirit.