I broke
my stride and routine
to watch
a speeding bird
fly into the yard,
dip down over
the sopping mud
by the still-covered pool,
miss the house by a mere foot,
and arc back
above the trees
on its way out.

My watch hesitated
as if to say:
why bother keeping time
when it can be stopped
so easily?

It started again
as soon as it knew I’d seen it,

but a part of me remained
arrested by memory,
thinking of the confidence
born of instinct
that let that bird
swoop low before me,
certain of its ability
to avoid collision
and not die ignominiously
before my skeptical eyes,
its body smashed
and ragged, its spirit
banished in the second it took
for a thin hand to move
across the numbers of a dial.