Feeding the Hawk 2

(Click on the last word when you get there)


Now

   the trees are bare, ice

    beads at the end of twigs

A sparrow lights


And settles

    preening, still. What holds it

    with the night falling around it

On its bough


A redtail

   kept for falconing, stepped off the glove

    And I remember how that hawk

Begins to close


Its talon

    over my flannel shirt, pausing,

    holding still, holding me even

Now