Dawn
Does
the morning
remember me, because I
remember it: the air
just
like this, with
condensation from
night—waking
in
my tent, father
already snapping twigs
into a fire, mother
out
walking, sister
still wrapped in
sleep. The sun started
shallow
just like today,
first stretching
for tips of clouds,
stirring
blue into
the dark sky--I remember
birds like these
conversing
over berries,
swooping in unison
for a branch or just
following
each other
in skips along the ground,
though these
buildings
weren't
there, filed
and neatly stacked and
there were no stalks of
industry
spitting
smoke above
the roofline, no
roofline. Still,
this
morning/in this city/
this school, things
don't seem so
different--
years
from that camp site and somehow
the hair-dryers and blaring
cartoons
call like a loon from these neighboorhoods:
mournful
with birds pricking the air
like needles over skin,
uncaged
as though
they
could swim up,
find no surface,
be able to go back.
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