What Is Caged Is Also Kept From Us
       

They come back to you as a sign
when someone dies, they say, a dragonfly,

some dull moth skimming a mud puddle,
a hummingbird in the ditch's golden rod.

But what if they are alive? But not allowed
to live? How do they return, then? Cricket

under the sink for three nights straight.
Why do we call it a song? That scraping

that needy stridulation. Scraper to file,
file to scraper. One song is for calling,

another to scare away, but they all sound
the same in the ghost hours of emptiness.

He does not come back. And she? She
does not see him in the red bird's black

mask or the dreary pinks of another dusk.
He is no symbol, no easy animal omen.

She opens the window to fetch only air.
He does not even have a window to open.

Tweet
Copyright © 2021 Ada Limón All rights reserved
from The Cincinnati Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission