Clarity

Clarity

When my mother called and told me

you'd been crushed

by a car,

she used fiber optics...

The clarity was remarkable.

300 miles away,

and not even a crackle

obscured her thick throat

on the other end

of the receiver.

I've seen sparrows asleep on

the wires

like prayer beads at night, their small

talons not quite

tight enough to constrict the

words

pulsing at nearly

light speed beneath them and their

sparrow-dreams,

but perhaps they have managed

to syphon-off and hide within

their tiny bodies

the part that is still unclear---

why you had to die.