So.

An odd moment: the transition
from fearing for the world
and all I know of it

to being obsessed with
the numbness in my hand
and why it hasn’t ended
with a good night’s sleep
and how hard it’s going to be 
to function until it’s gone…
if it goes…
if it goes…
at all.

Like a buzzard 
who has been wheeling
and seeking

the dead,

like a buzzard
spiraling in
slowly from a great height,

certain only of 
the fact of there being
something down there
that requires

greater attention;

how interesting,
this matter of 
how the fear 
that a short day ago
sang within me
in broad strokes

has shifted
to this small
humming

without missing
a note: the

same buzzard song
in a different arrangement.