print previewback TALVIKKI ANSEL
Somewhere in Space
[Coming back . . . ]
Coming back into the yard something’s off—
a spot: white and orange hovers
against the green, moves, floats,
jags back and forth against the brush line—
it’s a swan, blundered into the backyard
sway and careen it jabs and jabs
head through the fence, against the closed gate,
over the ditch, list and jab it can’t
fly up, I open the gate, shush-shush
it through, careening it knows exactly where
in the world it wants to go,
straight into woods, heaves itself overbriars and logs, disappearing white spot in the dense
brush on short legs fast, unsteady-seeming,direction of the river, it goes.