April 17

Of the perhaps two-hundred juncos and a handful

of song sparrows that inhabited the back yard

waiting for a spring storm to pass before moving

north, was it perhaps one whose path crossed that

of my car a couple of miles away just at dusk,

and how was it that one feather somehow

stuck to the back window momentarily, making

me sure that the bird, glancing off the passenger-

side window, had not survived the meeting,

making that bird among all of them a known

bird, individual among many that appeared to be

all the same, and is it always true that random

death gives the victim its particularized

selfhood, its moment of complete recognition.