The bird in February knows what this is,
so he makes an ellipse of longing in the sky.
We don’t want to be what we are,
so we mimic the voices of love-starved dogs.
We square our shoulders into abandoned factories.
You don’t have to be a man anymore,
says the tree that hasn’t a single leaf left;
the old possum, so good at dying in the road,
knows what I mean.
