5,000 BLACKBIRDS DEAD, FALL FROM SKY IN BEEBE, AR

                                 When they fell they said

           it was a dark shower, wings
                                 motionless (some still

outstretched), black bullets plunking
                        roofs and dogs hurrying to mouth

             them up, and I wonder if they
thought, is this it, what collective
                       feeling they had, if the air

             was electric the exact moment the suck

                        of life, the moment five thousand hearts
             expanding four hundred times a minute

suddenly, now, don't.


Brett Elizabeth Jenkins