Mary

I could not say it, but I tried 

to hide you here, safe 

inside my body’s steady beat,

while the neighbor’s daughter trotted circles 

in the autumn rain, echoing

the dizzy flume of supposed-to-be-southbound birds

black in the roaring sky, but – 

You were already elsewhere.

Your eyes like eggshell blue burned bright.

They hollowed long tunnels through white walls.

I could not follow.