John Hodgen
Knew a man who trained himself to train falcons,
to hold his arm out unrestrained night after night
in the perfect pitch of a farmyard shed on the coast
of Ireland, the window open, his arm splayed out
on a picnic table like a Jesus crucifixion arm, bait
in his hand like a spike, as if he'd been left outside
with the trash all night instead of taken away
by family and friends, body washed, wrapped
in raiment, linen and tears, taken to the tomb
of Joseph of Arimathea, locked inside and told
not to move a goddamned inch.
Who waits alone in that night,
in that steely eye of darkness and
loss for a falcon to alight?
What spirit comes to us, curved knife,
two-hundred miles an hour,
past our smell, our talon-sharpened fear,
darker than night's darkest night?
What learns to land again and again
upon us, coming like another world,
to trust, trust again and then take flight?