__)(__

The geese are wearing beautiful masks.
Mine is heavier.  Flight is an afterthought.
The landscape is whimpering under our many feet.
The sun punches dripping holes in the snow.
Riverside explodes
with roaring white ass-feathers
of our cousins the swans.

Next is the planet of all birds, slowly arriving
in the torched sky.
There will be a place for one man there:
I latch the window of my helmet
and to my honking fleet
I hang on.

__)(__