Poem: David Luntz

It Could Be Any Winter Evening

It could be any winter evening,
that unbinds a memory of something tender:
a sparrow hit by a car, jerking in the gutter,
blood on its beak, that I scooped and cradled in my palms,
and felt its heart eddying wildly
toward the vanishing point of oblivion.

I wanted to save it, act the healer,
take it out of the cold,
give it seeds and water,
but it died several hours later in a shoebox
below the window from which it should have flown away.
The ground was too frozen to bury it.

So I put it in some newspaper or a discarded
supermarket bag (I don’t remember which),
and stuck it in the garbage outside,
dejected at the sordidness of the whole thing,
resentful that life once more turns me cynical.

It could be any winter evening,
as light falls on leaves, silence over shadows,
that I return home with little more than
bitter wisdom to comfort me,
since I know well now that what is desired
is sometimes better not to have.

* * * * *

~ This is David Luntz's second appearance in Elegant Thorn Review.

Tags: David Luntz, poetry, It Could Be Any Winter Evening