"What is caged is also kept from us.
"They come back to you as a sign when someone dies," they say.
A dragonfly, some dull moths skimming
a mud puddle, a hummingbird in the ditches golden rod.
But what if they are alive but not allowed to live?
How do they return then?
Cricket under the sink for three nights straight,
why do we call it a song?
That scraping, that needy strangulation,
scraper to file, file to scraper.
One song is for calling, another to scare away,
but they all sound the same in the ghost hours of emptiness.
He does not come back.
And she does not see him in the red birds, black mask,
or the dreary pinks of another dusk.
He is no symbol, no easy animal omen.
She opens the window to fetch only air.
He does not even have a window to open."