by Nancy Krygowski

Another murder

in the bird world.

This one outside

the basement window.

What I thought was snow

in April was feathers

softening a too-cold morning.

I met a young man

and after we were introduced,

he said, I love you.

And I said I love you, too

because what else

can you say to love

but love?

I know the cat was hungry

and the bird anonymous

to me and the cat, though not

to its brothers.

I love you, I tell the cat

licking its paws.

I love you, I say to the

ghost feathers and

that too blue spot

of empty sky.

Nancy Krygowski is the author of The Woman in the Corner and Velocity, winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize. She teaches in Carlow University’s Madwomen in the Attic writing program and is Co-Editor of the Pitt Poetry Series and Pittsburgh Bureau Chief of the tiny newspaper, Tiny Day.