Swan Song
by Hannah Riffell
After he was left an orphan,
he made a habitat of winters
on lakes, ponds, and open
marshes. I called on New Year’s Day,
under the sort of incognito
also witnessed in the wild,
the body white and the eye yellow.
I felt an impulse of happiness,
feasting on mollusks and grain.
How pretty they are now, the swans,
his heart of gold, that one iron stain,
a muffled trumpet entering my dreams again.