I see a glass of gin unmixed,
remembered still in the bottle,
still on the shelf,
still through rumbles of road
crumbled still.
The birds revisit cautiously,
their twitters filling the air—
short sentences, as if letters
are pumped with the value of gasoline,
in flux.
They come from the earth,
as do we return there.
A theory of spontaneous generation,
again reproved.
The order of higher animals,
emerged from glorified Campbell’s,
an alphabet soup of restricted acronyms:
the new god of creation.
So, by birds I mean vultures,
returned to the squirrel
who surrendered to the road;
I said they were only visiting.
They say nature is reawakening,
narrowing stomped paths and
erasing.
It’s the predators becoming the prey but
it’s also my air compressor being too loud
in a room I can’t leave—
just a girl and her cat.