I Am Trying to Love the Whole World

is such a public display of affection, a flex even,

one the lone magpie staring back from the backside

of a badly shorn sheep finds suspect. I flap my arms

& blink three times. Bad luck to glimpse just one.

Magpie being the only creature rumored to have

refused the ark, preferring to perch high on the mast

& curse the rain. I too keep rewinding this mixtape

of the plague years until I can hear it snap like a tendon

or a tent pole. The world stays busy out there, hammering

itself into softer ground with a flat rock & yet, the sound

of wind softly shaking the stars awake. My world

I have missed your mouth, your morning

breath coming round the wild garlic, your fat

lilacs forgetting to be the flower of death.