Not

that you are unloved
but that you love
and must decide which

to remember; tracks left
in the field, a language
of going away or coming back—

and to look up
from the single mind,
to let untangle

the far-off snow
from sky
until no longer

held as proof
is also where birds
find agreement

strung along branches
each with their own song
for the other,

every note used
to sing anyway—
how to hold the already

as the not yet

Copyright © 2013 by Sophie Cabot-Black. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-A-Day on May 8, 2013. Browse the Poem-A-Day archive.