CHIRP

Maybe first we’ll poke our heads out
and see if anyone else is poking their heads
out. Birds lifting their beaks over the lip
of the nest. Pry our eyes open in the sun.
Look left and right. And ahead at the house
across the street where Ms.Hawkins lived
before a while back when I don’t want

to talk about it. Maybe we won’t want
to talk about it. Or read about it.
Or dream about it. Or sing about it.
Like a baby unable to recall birth,
like a spirit unable to tell us what
dying is like. Maybe we will feel strangely
cleansed, but not enough to shake hands

but enough to smile at the neighbors
that bother us. Enough to laugh at the jagged
hedges that have grown unruly around the doorway
of our faces. Maybe we will listen to the party being
had before the party we inevitably throw,
the birds lifting their beaks over the lip
of the nest, chirping new, after pecking through eggshell.