Walking and Watching

It is good to go on a walk
past the house of a high school friend
and see each window lit up,
tall rectangles of warmth in the gray evening --
snow and sky and siding --
someone in each room,
wrapping presents.
I can picture him and his family.
It's Christmas Eve.

It is good to watch a snowflake
for the last five feet of its life,
pulled into the pavement or onto the lawn,
joining fellow flakes and losing shape.
"The death of individualism," I think.
It saddens me, and I remember holocausts
I survived secondhand, flipping the pages
to discover my own chance survival.
How many snowflakes died each day
during the Holocaust?
And yet the end of their flight
is the cause for my joy,
piles of snow I can lie in
tomorrow, when
it's Christmas Day.

Birds for Windows

The birds have the truth,
carry it on their wings to their death
brought on by the advanced technology
of cleaning products,
which make windows and glass doors
completely transparent,
a trait worth paying for,
apparently,
or no one would ever upgrade their Windex.
But they do,
sealing the doom of the winged.
And after the impact of Bird and Windexed window,
someone -- a boy in a flannel shirt with one pant leg rolled up,
the right leg -- finds the body
and endeavors to preserve it.
Borax and scalpel in a wooden box
covered with national pride,
a red and blue flag papered on the inside.
Ironic ownership for a Mennonite taxidermist.
He pinches, pries, with long and beautiful fingers
blue eyes. Peels back the skin, looking for truth,
but it isn't there.
It is the part of them that no longer lives post-Windex impact,
the part you heard from the corner of your ear
outside a window at night --
Nightingale, sing us a song
of a love that once belonged --
singing truth as you fell asleep.
The birds know, but they're dying
for the sake of transparent windows
and doors.