Murmuration
BY CHARLOTTE BOULAY
The most birds I’ve ever
seen. What lives
the longest? Superlatives are only sometimes
useful. A sea of open beaks and wing. Flip
the quick one, melt the meticulous. It’s
a sort of trick that color,
that sun-in-a cup, and the rush
has no signature. How can we measure
the velocity, the distance from one trestle to another—
leaving the ground is different. Banking
and rising all together, there’s no barre
at which to stand; the sandbank shifts
underwater and the clouds move correspondingly
above. Watch the birds: the sky parts and remakes itself
almost cruelly while we wait for the next
instruction: now dance now droop now rest.