Bird in Parking-Lot Tree

Half-in, half-out
Of the car, the fist of my thought closed

Around getting home, I’m pierced
By a trill from the small tree marooned

In an asphalt glitterless sea. What I’m hearing
Can’t be touched by a dollar,

Nor will the upstart lender hold it dear, nothing
For sale in the sound, nothing

For the Dow.
The grand emporia stand blank-walled, back-lit

In the evening’s summery distances
As the mind reverts to the field-sound, the seasonal shtick

Of the soloist
Whose shape I can barely make out, wind-instrument winged.

When out of my own instinctive
Tightening of the throat, beneath a halogen’s quavering, my hand

Clinging to a shopping bag
With its half-price shoes,

I croon back
Do you want to know a secret? Do you promise

Not to tell?
The key in the ignition chirping along,

The golden lights of the dash
Parsing time, parsing distances.