Then there was the sudden stillness
of thousands of birds on the telephone wires
strung like records of our transgressions
in an unquiet pattern against
roiling gray sky.
How had they come there, how
in their alien dance had they conceived
this tautness, this bizarre
and malefic solidity
from their own selves,
a tension like a hand
on the small of your back, at the nape
of your neck.

Then there was the sudden stillness
of thousands of black birds on telephone wires,
black stones on a string, a long dash
on granite sky—