Like Cuvier, reading the entire bird from the feather,
I’m learning to predict disaster in a drop of rain.
The entire predatory body of the storm will come later,
lightning inscribed on the parchment-ragged clouds.
From your kiss I read your leaving, my body
broken by whiskey and tears. But all of this came later.
Picture me now, a sort of modern-day Tiresias, stirring my fingers
in every pool I come across. I favour the rain collected
in dishes left outdoors for dogs. I favour dirty water.

Who favours me? The gods, occasionally, when they bless
the entrails of stray cats with visions of the future;
the rain, sometimes, which drowns out all the language in my ear,
that fills my mind with visions of the sea which seethes and
growls and sees nothing and hears nothing and never thinks
of the future. Let the ships and fish take care of themselves.
Let everything struggle to float above the wreckage and the waves.

Yesterday I happened to pass a birdbath and saw your face twinned.
What is the exact significance of the double?
Love appears in visions as a rose, failing that, the carcass of a horse.
Do you remember? You carved your name in my back with a finger.
But for the lightning forked in your eyes, I would have spoken it aloud.
Flower or carrion? (I can’t remember)
I’m not the one in charge of metaphor.

It’s no matter. Some day soon I’ll find clean water,
sunk at the bottom of a well or falling clear to the foot
of a mountain, spilled as blood through the bone thick rocks.
For now I’m off to strip each bird down to the feather,
piece my way from here back to the past we had
together. I’ll burn it when I find it, as offering, as prayer.