Hymn at My Throat

^{—after Amanda Shires}

Another bird tucks the gray flute of its body 
through a tree’s tangle of dusky branches, and 
the boy at the desk of my heart starts.

The boy at my heart’s desk removes the #2 pencil 
he’s been worrying between his teeth to open 
the final sentence for his essay on love:  Dear bird 
of light that lives in me …

The boy pushes an awkward cursive toward the end 
of something you could call prayer because 
moments ago the darkness made him fear to finish 
what he needed to ask me about loneliness.

But then a weeping I never felt lessen—it just 
walked away—raises its voice again along the halls 
of memory, and the boy aims his eraser 
at everything before.

                                          Another bird tucks the gray 
of its body through a tree’s tangled branches, 
and the boy at the desk of my heart stops.