As things grow rarer, they enter the ranges of counting.

Remain this many Siberian tigers, 

that many African elephants. Three hundred red-legged egrets. 

We scrape from the world its tilt and meander of wonder

as if eating the last burned onions and carrots from a cast iron pan.

Closing eyes to taste better the char of ordinary sweetness.

 

—2016

from Ledger (Knopf, 2020); first appeared in Washington Square. Used by permission of the author, all rights reserved.