Epiphanies in the form of birds,
Athena’s owl, Aphrodite’s doves,
their light—gravity—how humbling
anything with wings like hands lifting

and a voice that sings, not one’s own,
but an articulation outside coming in
that points to another other than self,
to the invisible. It is

insistent, urging, repeating itself,
almost apostolic. It is
nurturing, emptying self of self,
paring off layers, not as

psychologists with easy chairs
and rats, but as a flower
dropping petals wanting out,
a bird ascending from dusk of trees,

open, wanting air, water, tenderness.
Snow falls on those who came before,
their underground voices—
blouses on a hanger, empty of heartbeats,

sleeves like wings that reach.
Indignation of an easy erasure
of pain that tells what is
already known, instead of toward

what can’t be measured or priced—
light, gravity like love, pain,
subatomic in harmony with unseen order,
anything with wings like hands lifting.