In the Meantime

In the Meantime

The door opened on the opened neck 

of a White Leghorn, fleshy

as the raw wound of the world 

for which some of us weep 

and others head straight to the shed

for the shovel. There is, of course, the work

ahead: reinforce the coop, tie tight

the chinks through which a paw 

might reach, look for words

that neither lie nor tell the lay of it  

to children who want to know what happens 

to more than birds. What there isn’t 

is making sense of this, making

right by common scales, just 

the making, always the making, mess 

by which we might yet meet 

the warm press of fingers 

folding us into ourselves

and out of ourselves into the fold, 

where we perch awhile, heads tucked

like little lumps of clay waiting 

for the light to take shape.