Disguises

A single bird
over the church
at the top of our hill.
I can see from his fingered wings
he’s a buzzard, he of
naked head and taste for death,

but from here,
he soars.

It’s going to snow tomorrow
and I have an urge
to cover the daffodils
that are just emerging
from the compacted mulch,

but it passes.
They’ll be fine.

In the dark of the apartment
the fears and concerns of the day
slide around me in bed
like eels — electric or moray
I can’t say, but they come close
and my skin pulls back;

then I sleep,
and they move away.

In waves upon waves
the disguised and dissembling
cover the earth.  From where I stand
there’s nothing out there but
a danger of drowning,

but I bob up to the surface
and see the sky every time.