I miss the birds in winter
/not the way you miss
a name on a gravestone
with an ache in your breast
but the way you miss your mother
when you live states apart:
it’s when you see her at Christmas and say
I missed you
that you know it’s true.
I don’t realize until spring
when they return—
the red-winged blackbirds
the chicory in the ditches
the buds on the lilac bush
beside my garage
it’s the way I missed
all the splintered pieces of myself
when I wore a wedding band.
I chinked the gaps in
with mud and slush and snow,
daubed over everything
with fir trees
and colored lights
and train rides to Virginia
you don’t realize things are missing
you don’t know the earth is sleeping
until
the first blackbird
wakes you up
and trills his first spring song.