First try, the bird dropped
                                             from the sky,
belly-flopping the surface
that separates our two worlds,
and came up empty.
                                    He rose again
and wung away
in easy, languorous strokes,
as if it was all part of the plan.

Hunger returned him.
But whose?

What surprises us now, despite
our dragnet of the seven seas,

is that our lady
was not
            a first or only choice.

I am but a carpenter
sitting on a bench, beside water
yet have observed
more than one
                        slim silver beauty

who had but a single
                        premonitory moment
to ponder who or what
            that brilliance meant
            which filled the sky
before being plucked from their lives.

The dying-to-self
                        our mothers did so well
a little something
they picked up on the fly.