It was a backstreet cutting off from Rue Saint-Jacques & most of the apartments were shuttered still
Against the brisk blades of early morning the sills of a few lined with green wood window boxes
Of anemones or dahlias here or there blue geraniums & lilies & on Roxanne’s second-floor balcony
Just outside its open brass doors the tarnished antique cage still swaying slightly on its hook
As her mustard-colored finch worked its way up a sequence of perches brushing each wing
Along the cage’s wires each as fragile as the bird’s own bones & as I turned a corner losing sight of Roxy’s
For no reason I could imagine except my long-awaited absence her goldfinch began to sing