Ftrain, by Paul Ford

You said I was pretty that evening
of a thousand birds, their wings
beat darkly up from your soft mouth,
sweeping the moon
away. The few who come here now drop
at odds. Querulous. Chatter.
Old old old!
So your sighing friend has journeyed
from your new village asking me
to write you after...too long.
The moon, just having risen, trembling-
edged upon the water
in his cedar cup. She
is dead then?
Those who have died are as a swarm of
hands beckoning an older moon
this long white evening to
drown our shadows.