Swifts

Bing Crosby died in Spain

while playing golf with Franco

but who could care less, and at this

writing only a few of

my dear ones are gone—ah I

could make a sad list—the swifts,

as if to prove a point,

fly into the light and make

a mockery out of our darkness.

They scream for food but in

the world of shadows they only

make a quick motion; I have

studied them—the whiter

the wall is—the barer the bulb—

the more they scream, the more

they dip down. I have made

my two hands into a shape

and I have darkened the wall

to see what it looks like—I have

shortened my two broken fingers

to make the small tail and twisted

the knuckles sideways so when

they come in to eat one shadow

overtakes the other, that way

I can live in the darkness

with Franco's poisonous head

and Crosby's ears, who fainted,

a thousand to one, behind a

number two club, though no swift

died for him, well, for them,

digging for clubs. I watch the

birds every night; they fly

in a great circle, much larger

than what I can see, their dipping

is what I dreaded in front of

my plain white wall—I say it

for the nine hundred Americans

who died in Spain. I thought

I'd have to wait forever

to do them a tiny justice

and listen to their songs

and die a little from the foolhardy

mournful words, flying down

one air current or another

and doing the sides of buildings

and tops of trees, the low-lying

straggling dogwood, the full-bodied

huge red maple, my dear ones.