Letters for Burning

Take it from me, Caroline, a crisis of faith
is not as interesting as a dead pigeon
in the cistern after a long winter.

The world doesn’t want to see you on your knees
for more than a minute when it could be
inspecting a music box that knew how to fly.

Your gorgeous cabeza is cold as a gun’s empty
chamber, a hole that can’t be stuffed with poems
or the half-chewed aspirin of the moon.

Feral and barrel-chested, a pigeon knows
why bacteria can’t sleep at night and hears
the trees catch fascinating new diseases.

We can be a vessel. My sad Caroline, skip
the greasy Dies Irae of this year and peel
away panic, the sudden reptilian movements.

If we get Emerson’s idea that observing
the physical exfoliates the spiritual, then
isn’t forensic investigation where it’s at?

A pigeon lived hymning through looping
coos and verses, not shoaling outside
the courthouse awaiting further word.

A bird is an object that breaks light
into patterns so we can come out
of our houses to say goodbye to the trees.

- Jennifer Willoughby