It’s a spring day, jet plane.

And oh the sparrow’s singing,

singing and doesn’t know a thing,

doesn’t know a thing about evil.

It’s a spring day, jet plane,

and everything adjusts.

Buds burst. Flowers explode.

Lakes crack open and bleed.

From here, it is still possible

to squeeze into that corner,

to blur the eyes just so and imagine

things are going fine.

The sparrow, to the bottom of its brain,

is free, a string of sand-sized heartbeats

from embryo to rot, unbroken staccato of

perfect innocence. Jet plane, you wouldn’t know.

You wouldn’t know, in your own absolution,

about that kind of heat, that kind of blood.

To hear the winged warm-blooded flute

underneath that hot metallic howl;

to know the sweet possibility of song

and to forebode its mutilation;

to reside terrified and culpable between

animal and mechanized innocence;

that is left to me.