[From the Archive] Christmas Crow

A bird is trapped in my house, a crow,
a starling. I do not know birds.

And he keeps battering himself
against the windows. Then, like any bird

in a poem or song, he sings. I want to keep him
here, until Christmas, when I bring in the tree.

Then he will feel more at home, a pine
or fir tree in the living room. I do not know trees.

As he hovers over the nativity, I will play him a blessing
on the piano where he has been leaving

his shit for a month, and we will all sing to him:
“Brich an, o schönes Morgenlicht.”

How could a bird not love Bach in German?
All the birds like Bach, I’m assured, by other birds.

How much will he love me when, on Epiphany Sunday,
I set him free, and like a carol, a hymn, a curse

he rises in the clipped cold and flies
his bright shadow across the January snow?

[Originally published in 2016.]