This Present Life

James Reiss

Did the bird that slammed into my picture window 

 think its glass was an open door he could breeze 

 through like the sparrow flying through time 

 in the Anglo-Saxon poem, coming to life when he flew 

 into a manor hall dining room? Did he expect baked eels and mead 

 to be served amid cries of hál béo þu with music 

 from hand-held harps? Did he think he could flit past my fireplace 

 in his gray feathers and never emerge from my house? 

 As he lay in a tiny heap outside on a flagstone 

 his soul arose like smoke that wreathed 

 my suburb's shield.