The Finches Return

^{“…whatever the finches are doing.”
—One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Omar El Akkad}

The finches are returning to my love’s backyard
and I note their landing, dusky browns, red flashes.
She’s on her way to work in Palestine, hard
put to get through digital doorways, text she washes
only to watch the donors’ dollars stall
in trucks lined up along the border. Outside.
All aid’s outside, outsized if not outsourced, all
becomes a border impossible to criticize
let alone cross. Signed bombs drop over and often,
the ceasefire ceases before it begins. Silence
on our side. We can imagine the hum, to soften
thoughts of phosphorus, refrigerated trucks that follow violence.
I watch with her, over her shoulder, the flashing birds
outside, trucks on the screen, her engine of words.