Untitled

The old brick
buildings still have Christmas
         lights on the edges of their walls.

Its brick
does not flinch like its population
after stepping out of their buildings
into their cars. It is windy. A golden eagle,
         having circled the air for hours,

plummets,
striking a small rodent
        with blinding force,


                     and
              the reader
        can imagine that
 the rodent thought
   of a shattered galaxy


in the final instant of its life, or that its final breath
sounded a piano chord or resonated like a violin string

after being plucked,
before drooping in its talons.

                               This happened miles away
                    from the town with Christmas lights

a week too old. And if you were looking for an end

to the tension in this poem, you won't get it.
I built it that way.