Robert Parham

COLD SUN

Into the one good eye of winter
flew two sparrows bent
for a better place than what
was central, just that
which spins itself out in an orbit
looped obliquely around an objet
d'art perhaps, or just a bird.

It was a dream preferred,
of course, a miracle denied
because that is the proper fate
of miracles, those except
the ones we casually read
of, lies, approximations bad
enough to shuffle to the center
of the deck, to lose dead
between neighbors, one day
after what we thought was the last.