I have an old lobster buoy
Hanging dully from
A wrought-iron basket hook—
A rough cutaway
Filled with suet,
Clabbered in wire mesh.
.
I had imagined chickadees
Squabbling with angry jays
And occasional sparrows, finches—
Maybe even cedar waxwings
tired of scrounging
For dry berries;
But here it is,
A warm night in March,
Still untouched,
Still beckoning
A lingered hope.
The snows are gone,
The muddied lawn now full
With the promise,
Of idle seeds and soft grasses,
Of carcasses and shells—
A winter’s kill, enough
To fill the belly
And gorge the void—
this lost friendship,
This gift unclaimed.
