Sparrow

“There’s a special
providence in the fall of a sparrow.”

– William Shakespeare, Hamlet

I found a remnant of your life
when I arrived. 

Caught on the glass,
it fluttered as I slowed until,
stopped in the windless room,
(like you) it grew still.

I had drifted—
the sun was behind me, pulling its 
golden blanket across 
the late-summer landscape,

the war-room warble was still
battering in my head—
I'd left it there in search
of other dwellings. 

Floating, it seemed I was 
not actor but observer:

you among the host 
lifting from the grass and cutting
across my path

(a second and a half
was too late to
slip back into my skin).

In the mirror I saw your body
drop like a 
sack of beads.

It was only a moment,
one moment before that you

enjoyed the warmth of sun on your back,
the swell of a crumb in your belly,
the chitter of friends,
the prospect of tomorrow.

I raged for this,
I wept.

My body
wrapped in marbled green
and their voices again,
like a warring wind:
why are you in the military? 

This time from the girl 
who weeps for sparrows:
why are you in the military?

August 13, 2021