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MATTHEW THORBURN
Homage to Tom Andrews
The birds break and wheel.
Fall out of, back into, their loose-
weave wave. Define a falling
arc. They fall like dark water
or a chain of dark molecules
that ripples and falls like water.
How they dis- and re- and dis-
order themselves—then do it
again, altered almost imperceptibly
this time by a crabby cabbie's
double beep-beep. Gray birds, gray
sky: one more dirty daily miracle
I hold out to you. Dear Tom,
how's heaven? Here in Astoria
it's January, month of the two-faced
god, and I look both ways
before crossing the street to reach
this better vantage point, here
beneath a flashing orange
hand: not a wave, but a warning.
There must be a formula
to account for these wheels
and arcs, these waves. A how,
if one has the patience, needs the proof;
if beauty is, again, not enough,
even in Queens. If we keep
wishing for a story, a
song, some lovelier way to say
what happens, then deeper
down let us find a why and, further
still, its echo: a why not
that makes this music. Til then,
Tom, I won't let anyone ask me
why I'm trying so hard not
to forget they're just pigeons,
but to forget that word just. 
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