THE LAST WORD

I love to watch the swallows at sundown,

                                   swarming after invisible things to eat.

Were we so lucky,

A full gullet, and never having to look at what it is,

Sunshine all over our backs.

There are no words between my fingers

Populating the lost world.

Something, it now seems, has snapped them up

Into its speechlessness,

                                         into its thick aphasia.

It’s got to be the Unredeemable Bird, come out

From the weight of the unbearable.

It flaps like a torn raincoat,

                                                first this side, then that side.

Words are its knot of breath,

                                                   language is what it lives on.